• Organizer says parents were causing disturbance

• No one arrested or made to leave game in Florida

Police were called after a dispute involving the parents of a three-year-old player at a soccer game in Florida over the weekend.

The boy’s parents can be heard on police body cameras saying their son, Nevada, had been kicked out because he was too good at soccer and was embarrassing the other children. However, an organizer at the game said Nevada had pushed other children and his parents had become argumentative when their son was taken out of the game.

• Prescott throws three touchdowns in Dallas victory

• Javonte Williams rushes for career-high 155 yards

• Eagles fall to 2-5 amid Jalen Hurts injury absence

Dak Prescott threw for 212 yards and three touchdowns, two to CeeDee Lamb, and the Dallas Cowboys beat Philadelphia 38-21 on Monday night to hand the Eagles their fifth straight loss.

Javonte Williams ran for a career-high 155 yards and a touchdown, and the Cowboys (3-4) remained in contention for the NFC East title. The New York Giants lead the division at 4-2-1.

• Milwaukee one win from first World Series title

• Brewers lead series 3-0 after resounding win in Tampa

Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang sparked Milwaukee’s eight-run fifth inning, and the Brewers routed the Tampa Bay Rays 10-1 on Monday night to move within one victory of their first World Series title.

“The guys play hard,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said after the game. “They don’t give in. They make every pitch count, and that’s what it takes to win. That’s the same thing that Tampa did all year. That team is very, very capable. This is a best-of-seven series. It looks like we’re in the driver’s seat, but it’s baseball. Anything can happen.”

• WNBA finals Game 5: Dream 55-64 Valkyries

• Golden State lead best-of-seven series 3-2

• Valkyries could win title in second WNBA season

Kiah Stokes kept swatting shots on the interior, while Veronica Burton disrupted the Dream with her own quick hands to alter shots.

And that crazed, violet-clad “Ballhalla” home crowd roared at every chance – watching the Golden State Valkyries move one win away from a championship in their second season with a 64-55 victory against Atlanta in Game 5 of the WNBA finals on Monday night.

Rapper who has helped produce the Super Bowl show for years is stepping up to perform himself, at SoFi Stadium in California

After years of producing the Super Bowl half-time show, Jay-Z has announced that the 2027 headline act will be none other than himself.

After days of speculation, the NFL, Apple Music and Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation announced on Monday night that the rapper will be the featured performer for the half-time festivities at the Super Bowl LXI on 14 February at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

How will Dallas and Philadelphia fare today? Here is what to know, including kick-off time, TV channels and live stream options

There is “reeling”, and then there is whatever the Eagles are doing heading into Monday Night Football against the Cowboys. Philadelphia have lost four games in a row to fall within a whisker of last place in the NFC East. Jalen Hurts’s blood clots rapidly escalated and have probably knocked the franchise QB out for the season. Backup Tanner McKee has inherited a legitimate crisis. And it’s not as if all was hunky-dory before Hurts went out. The Eagles had already blown a 10-point fourth-quarter lead to the Rams and let the Jaguars come back on them in shocking fashion in London before the Hurts news.

The Cowboys have their own enormous issues. Former Eagles assistant Christian Parker joined up as defensive coordinator, aiming to fix a bad unit, but the Cowboys are still struggling to keep teams from racking up big point and yardage totals. Facing the Cowboys defense has been a salve for struggling offenses, as when a Packers team who couldn’t convert a third down for their life suddenly converted nine of their first 10 against Big D last weekend.

• Valkyries-Dream Game 6 to tip at 9.30am on west coast

• Game moved to larger State Farm Arena in Atlanta

• Hawks’ NBA game on same day could not be moved

Game 6 of the WNBA finals between the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries will be played at State Farm Arena on Thursday at 12.30pm ET, the league has announced. That means Valkyries fans in California will be watching the game at 9.30am local time.

Dream guard Allisha Gray said it didn’t matter what time the game was played.

There’s plenty of blame to go around at Old Trafford. Like all downfalls it started with a seemingly small, unconnected moment

• Sign up for our free newsletter here

And so here we are again, at that point as the nights draw in and Manchester United prepare to sack a manager. Autumn: season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and a crisis at Old Trafford. Sunday’s 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth, coming on the back of last week’s 4-1 reverse against Como, made clear what many had feared from the moment Michael Carrick was given the job on a permanent basis: that he isn’t up to it.

But then, who could be? When you’ve burned through a long list of managers in 13 years, it’s perhaps worth considering whether the manager is really the problem. Could some blame perhaps go to the director of football, Jason Wilcox, or the chief executive, Omar Berrada, the people making the appointments? Or perhaps to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the cost-cutting tax exile and minority shareholder with responsibility for sporting operations? Or to the Glazer family, who plunged the club into debt with a leveraged buyout in 2005 and have since made calamitous decision after calamitous decision, reducing the most successful club in English league history to a mid-table laughing stock with a roof that leaks symbolically?

This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here.

The Orlando City product scored his first goal in La Liga, playing three positions in a comeback win over Valencia

While most of La Liga’s oxygen was consumed by the first el clásico since José Mourinho’s return to Real Madrid this weekend, another rivalry put Alex Freeman in the spotlight position.

Or quite a few positions, as it turned out.

The 42-year-old remains a polarizing figure. But the Steelers have a formidable defense and a quarterback who has seen it all before

Aaron Rodgers is nowhere near this NFL season’s MVP conversation. At times in his second season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the almost-43-year-old has shown glimpses of the player he was in his prime, slinging the ball with zest and precision, able to suss out any coverage. Other times he has looked like, well, a guy in his 40s playing a young man’s game.

Rodgers looked more like prime Rodgers in the Steelers’ gritty 16-10 win over the New Orleans Saints in Paris. He wasn’t satisfied with his side of the ball, telling reporter Molly McGrath, “I don’t think we played very good on offense today.” But Rodgers did enough to secure the win, including a 51-yard strike to DK Metcalf in the second quarter. He later scrambled for a first down on third-and-six to secure the win.

• Guard stretchered off court after apparent serious injury

• Team will learn more about status on Monday

Shai-Gilgeous Alexander scored 34 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder stayed undefeated but they lost All-Star guard Jalen Williams to what appeared to be a serious leg injury during their 108-101 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday night.

Oklahoma City won their third straight game to start the season but lost three players to injury, including Williams, who went down hard on a drive to the basket with 1:14 left. The guard’s left leg gave way as he landed and his foot bent at an unnatural angle. The 25-year-old left the court on a stretcher with towels covering his injured leg. He covered his mouth with his hands when he looked down at the injury while Gilgeous-Alexander and players on both teams appeared to be in shock.

• Bucs rout Panthers in Baker Mayfield’s return

• Browns move to 5-2 with late win over Titans

• Jets hand Dolphins their first win of the season

Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught nine passes for 150 yards and a touchdown, and the Seattle Seahawks handed the Kansas City Chiefs their first loss of the season.

How will the Kansas City and Seattle fare today? Here is what to know, including kick-off time, TV channels and live stream options

Sunday Night Football this week is a blockbuster. The Chiefs take their undefeated record to Seattle, where the defending-champ Seahawks should have an early sense of urgency. Mike Macdonald’s team enter at 3-3, already a full three games (plus, for now, a tiebreaker) behind the gangbusters 49ers. To have any real shot at a home playoff game — a critical edge in last year’s Super Bowl run — the Seahawks need to get a win against a resurgent Chiefs squad who nothing like the husk they appeared to be down the stretch last season.

In addition to a clash between two marquee franchises, the evening is a homecoming for one of the most important players of the young season: Kenneth Walker III. The Seahawks-turned-Chiefs running back has been key to KC’s offensive revitalization after signing as a free agent following his Super Bowl MVP nod with Seattle. The Chiefs were in the bottom half of the league in rushing yards per carry last year but this season hold a whopping lead over the second-place team, averaging 5.5 yards to the Bills’ 5.1. The 26-year-old Walker is having a career year and has worked his way from “good player” to “maybe the Offensive Player of the Year.”

• Steelers hold off Saints 16-10 in Paris

• Vikings beat Colts 16-10 to remain unbeaten

TOUCHDOWN! Browns 0-7 Titans 12:57, 1st quarter

T Pollard 36 yard rush

M Willis to C Douglas for seven yards

T Huntley to Z Flowers for 48 yards

The Dream and Valkyries are tied at 2-2 after four absorbing games. Many in America would rather we revisited the national anthem debate

When Tyler Perry leading lady Crystal Renee took center stage at State Farm Arena to sing the national anthem before the Atlanta Dream’s WNBA finals clash with the Golden State Valkyries on Saturday afternoon, a smattering of photographers, game officials and event security took their familiar places around her as the capacity crowd stood for the flag. The teams, as is now customary, spent that time in their locker rooms. As soon as the lights went back up, the teams returned to the floor to resume their shootarounds. Anyone genuinely invested in the finals would have been unfazed by them briefly stepping away – if they remembered it at all after the Valkyries’ 67-62 win tied the series at two games apiece. But for many watching the game, basketball is beside the point.

Seven years ago, Jay-Z declared that the culture had “moved past kneeling” and similar national anthem protests, seemingly sounding the death knell for an era of sports activism that had helped raise awareness of racial disparities as a broader social movement gathered force. The line cemented his partnership with the NFL as the league bowed to political pressure to crack down on anthem protests, with other major US sports eventually following the NFL’s lead. But rightwing media and politicians never got the memo. They’re still making sports a battleground for patriotism, with basketball as the war’s chief casualty.

• New Orleans Pelicans 135-141 Denver Nuggets (OT)

• Nuggets fans showed displeasure at half-time

Nikola Jokić scored eight of his 35 points in overtime and finished with 15 rebounds and 10 assists, and the short-handed Denver Nuggets rallied from 23 points down to beat the New Orleans Pelicans 141-135 on Saturday night.

Jokić had his 199th career triple-double in the regular season, second to Russell Westbrook, who retired with 209.

• Milwaukee rally from 4-0 down to win 5-4 in Game 2

• Frelick homers before Pratt delivers go-ahead single

• Rays undone by defensive mistakes in seventh inning

Sal Frelick tied the score with his first home run in three months, Cooper Pratt hit a go-ahead single in the seventh inning and the Milwaukee Brewers stunned the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 on Saturday night for a 2-0 World Series lead by overcoming a four-run deficit for the second time in the postseason.

Tampa Bay, who won the AL pennant by forcing opponents into mistakes, committed one error, made two other misplays that could have been charged as errors and had a runner thrown out at the plate.

• Surridge and Mukhtar fire Nashville to 2-0 victory

• Nashville extend unbeaten streak to seven matches

• Montreal teenager Keita impresses on MLS debut

Nashville SC scored twice in the second half to claim the Supporters’ Shield as the top team in MLS with a 2-0 win at CF Montreal on Saturday.

The win allowed Nashville (21-3-7, 70 points) to stretch their unbeaten streak to seven games (5-0-2).

Baseball’s two best regular-season teams are also among its lowest spenders. But their unlikely World Series comes with a warning about the sport’s future

The best pitcher in baseball led the best team to victory over the second-best team? Weird.

A World Series that makes the logical feel novel began on Friday as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 in Game 1. Of course the Brewers, with their MLB-topping 103 regular-season victories, should be facing the 98-win Rays on the grandest stage. But of course, since these are two of the smallest and lowest-budget franchises in the sport, they shouldn’t.

• American, 22, edges Britain’s Jake Jarman by 0.033

• Blakely takes vault and bars bronze after all-around gold

• Simone Biles watches as Americans shine in Rotterdam

American Frederick Richard won the floor exercise title at the world gymnastics championships in Rotterdam on Saturday, finishing ahead of Britain’s Jake Jarman and Israel’s Artem Dolgopyat.

With US gymnastics great Simone Biles looking on as a spectator in the Netherlands, the 22-year-old Richard secured his first world title, edging out Jarman by just 0.033 points after scoring 14.633. Jarman, the defending world champion, was among a field that included the last two Olympic gold medallists.

• American, 32, wins season-opening giant slalom

• Moltzan edges Albania’s Lara Colturi by 0.01sec

• Mikaela Shiffrin drops from first to seventh place

American Paula Moltzan became the oldest woman to claim her first Alpine skiing World Cup victory on Saturday, pipping Albania’s Lara Colturi by just one-hundredth of a second in a thrilling season-opening giant slalom at Sölden, Austria.

Moltzan, who was fifth after the opening run, produced a superb second descent to finish with a combined time of 2min 14.82sec, narrowly denying her Italian-born Albanian rival, who finished in 2min 14.83sec. Germany’s Emma Aicher completed the podium, 0.52sec behind the Minnesota native.

The basketball star seems proud to leave the job to his partner. That’s so last century

Nobody can accuse the basketball star LaMelo Ball of being bad at his job. That said, the Minnesota Timberwolves point guard doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of dribbling.

Ball has a nine-month-old son, LaOne, with his partner Ana Montana (real name: Analicia Chaves) and is apparently uninterested in dealing with all the body fluids that come with a baby.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Ultra-endurance swimmer Catherine Breed navigated waves, wildlife and pollution to become the first person to swim from state’s northern-most tip to Mexico border

Nearly four months ago, Catherine Breed, a 33-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area, set out to become the first person to swim the entire coastline of California – from its northern-most tip to the border with Mexico. She and her support team prepared for encounters with sharks and storms. They hadn’t anticipated completing the marathon swim during a year of historic super El Niño weather.

But after dodging hurricanes, wildlife and 8ft waves in an unusually volatile Pacific Ocean, Breed finally celebrated the end of her journey on a beach in San Diego on Monday.

Former USA team doctor Larry Nassar’s 2018 conviction sparked a global reckoning in gymnastics, yet gymnasts say they are still being let down

It has been 10 years since the Indianapolis Star published allegations of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for USA Gymnastics, setting off a chain of events that would lead to a reckoning for the sport. Hundreds of women came forward with their own allegations against Nassar, who also worked at Michigan State University, leading to his conviction and jailing.

The exposure of his crimes sparked a wider investigation into how gymnastics had allowed predators to abuse young athletes around the world. While Nassar was the worst recorded case, it emerged many other countries had questions to answer about the failure to protect victims from not only sexual but physical and emotional abuse. But a decade later, on a large houseboat moored in Rotterdam three tram stops away from the Ahoy Arena, where the World Gymnastics Championships are taking place this week, survivors and advocates raised fears about the slow pace of change.

• Brewers claim 3-2 victory in Game 1 of World Series

• Yelich triples home a run and scores in first inning

• Misiorowski and Megill hold off late Rays fightback

Trevor Megill struck out Jonny DeLuca with runners on second and third to escape a ninth-inning jam as the Milwaukee Brewers held on for a 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night.

DeLuca’s strikeout came after Tampa Bay’s Liam Hicks had grounded into an apparent game-ending double play that was overturned after a video review. Replays showed that Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt’s right foot was slightly off the bag when he reached to catch a high throw from second baseman Brice Turang.

• Team elects to voluntarily recognize union

• Squad members have advocated for better wages

The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders have unionized, in a watershed labor victory that comes after years of fighting for fair pay.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Association (DCCA) was voluntarily recognized by the Cowboys as the collective bargaining representative for the cheerleading squad, according to a Friday news release. The recognition came after “meaningful discussion” between the Cowboys organization and the DCCA, and the parties are set to begin collective bargaining.

• American, 21, wins world all-around title in Rotterdam

• Blakely ruptured achilles before 2024 Olympic trials

• First US champion since Simone Biles three years ago

Skye Blakely completed a sensational comeback from a ruptured achilles tendon to win the women’s all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in Rotterdam on Friday, claiming the biggest individual prize in the sport outside the Olympics.

The 21-year-old American scored 55.733 points across four apparatus to finish ahead of Russia’s Liudmila Roshchina (55.199), with China’s Ke Qinqin taking bronze (55.032).

• Steelers, Saints still on for NFL’s Paris debut on Sunday

• Violent protests prompt US security warning for fans

• PSG cancel Sunday match amid escalating Paris unrest

The NFL would have cancelled its first regular-season game in Paris, scheduled for Sunday, if the situation were unsafe, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said on Friday, referring to the recent protests in the French capital.

France experienced some of its worst urban unrest in years last weekend, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to tighten restrictions on protests on Thursday amid fears that demonstrations planned for Saturday could turn violent.

• Any player will be eligible for High Impact Player status

• Requirements had included top 100, marketability lists

• Sides also resolve grievance on Rodman contract refusal

The NWSL and the NWSL Players Association have reached a settlement to drop the restrictive criteria around the controversial High Impact Player (HIP) rule, allowing any player to earn the league’s highest salaries.

The NWSL introduced the rule late last year, allowing teams to spend an additional $1m above the salary cap to sign star players. Players with the designation had to meet one of eight criteria, ranging from US national team minutes and Ballon d’Or recognition to NWSL Best XI honors to media lists, including the Guardian’s Top 100 and a ranking that ordered athletes by marketability.

• Three-time Vezina winner leaves Winnipeg after 11 years

• Devils send four players and two draft picks to Jets

• Olympic gold medalist joins US teammate Jack Hughes

Connor Hellebuyck finally has a new home after the Winnipeg Jets granted the three-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender’s trade request in a deal that sent him to the New Jersey Devils on Friday.

The Devils sent center Dawson Mercer, goalie Nico Daws, prospect Alexander Command, forward Nick Bjugstad, a 2029 second-round pick and a 2027 seventh-rounder to Winnipeg for Hellebuyck.

The New York mayor’s passion for the Gunners and human rights presents an opportunity to push back on the club’s lucrative UAE sponsorship

Like him or not, there is no doubt that New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s passion for certain issues is electric, and that passion played a large part in him getting elected. But today, two of his biggest passions are on a collision course.

On one hand, Mamdani is now arguably the US’s most high-profile supporter of English Premier League champions Arsenal. A superfan since he was a child, he has put the Gunners into the American spotlight more than anyone since becoming mayor. The Empire State Building gleamed in Arsenal’s red and white when they won the Premier League title. He wrote an essay about what Arsenal’s championship means to him, talks about Arsenal at press conferences and interviews and inaugurated Thierry Henry Way near Times Square in honor of the Arsenal legend.

People under 35 are hunting for no-frills rides they can pay for in cash and fix themselves – defying expectations to take on steep loans

Jack Price joined the marines in fall 2021 knowing he would need a car to get around base and that he couldn’t afford a new one. A joyless, month-long search through dealer classifieds and Facebook Marketplace listings ended when his mother spotted a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta posted on her office listserv by a co-worker moving abroad. With just 60,000 miles (96,560km) on the meter, the car (a manual!) was mechanically sound, and the air conditioning, sunroof and Bluetooth radio worked too. At $6,000, it was a steal. Price paid in cash.

Five years on, the Jetta, which he called the Pewter Pebble, is still carting him from A to B in unassuming style. “I’ve completely driven it into the ground,” says the 30-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles. “All over bases, cross-country a couple times, not really lovingly. I get so much crap from people, but not people my age.”

• Mercedes youngster could become youngest title winner

• Max Verstappen says bumpy track makes drivers ‘suffer’

The Formula One world championship is within reach for Kimi Antonelli at the US Grand Prix in Austin this weekend. But while the young Italian approaches the race ­intending simply to have fun, there is disquiet among other ­drivers about the potential long-term health ­dangers posed by the state of the Texas circuit.

The 20-year-old Antonelli will become Formula One’s youngest world champion if he claims the title at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, eclipsing Sebastian Vettel’s record from 2010, when the German driver was 23 and Antonelli was four. It is an outside chance, as the Italian has acknowledged. He must win while needing his rivals to endure a poor day. His Mercedes teammate George Russell would have to finish outside the top eight and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton outside the top four.

It’s Milwaukee and Tampa Bay in the 122nd Fall Classic. Our writers predict how it will be decided, who will shine brightest and who will break their World Series maiden

Yes - and in fact, evidence that money actively undermines baseball happiness. For the big-market teams, anything less than a World Series is disappointing. Whereas for the Rays (who in April were given a 1.1% chance of winning the World Series by FanGraphs) or Brewers (2.1%), the season is already a success, and winning it all would give their fans more pleasure than a Yankees or Dodgers fan could ever experience. Alan Evans

• Trump calls James a ‘TOTAL DISGRACE’ over anthem

• US president demands apology for pregame warm-up

• James helps Sixers erase 29-point deficit against Cavs

Donald Trump lashed out at NBA superstar LeBron James on Thursday for what he called disrespectful behavior during the playing of the national anthem.

Trump posted a video of the basketball legend making apparent warm-up movements while lined up with his Philadelphia 76ers teammates before their season opener against the New York Knicks on Tuesday.

• New England Patriots 24–30 Chicago Bears

• Bears QB throws for 308 yards and two TDs

Caleb Williams threw for 308 yards and two touchdowns, and the Chicago Bears cooled off Drake Maye and the New England Patriots with a 30-24 win on Thursday night.

Williams was 22 of 33 passing in his second game back after being sidelined by a hamstring injury. He became the first Bears quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards in consecutive games since Mitch Trubisky had a three-game run in 2018.

• Retro design features red, white and black stripes

• Social media users draw Nazi Germany comparisons

• Falcons’ X post attracts roughly 26m views

Social media erupted in jokes and memes on Thursday after the Atlanta Falcons unveiled a logo that instantly drew comparisons with the imagery of Nazi Germany.

The logo – posted by the Falcons on the NFL team’s social media channels – shows the team’s old falcon symbol from the 1960s and 1970s, emblazoned on a background of red, white and black stripes.

• Funds for 2027 will match men’s World Cup in 2026

• Players given better flights and individual hotel rooms

Teams in the 2027’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil will receive the same preparation money from Fifa as those that played at the 2026 men’s tournament, the world’s governing body has announced.

The preparation money for the 32 teams has been more than doubled to $2.5m (£1.86m) each. In 2023, the total preparation money for the tournament was $31m; it will now be $80m.

• Concacaf approves exceptional hosting arrangement

• Haiti to face US at Nu Stadium on 14 November

• Miami’s Haitian community offers home advantage

Concacaf on Thursday announced it has approved Haiti’s request to relocate their Nations League quarter-final first leg against the United States on 14 November from Kingston, Jamaica, to Miami in an “exceptional hosting arrangement”. Haiti have been unable to play nominal “home” games within their borders since July 2021, with the United Nations estimating that 90% of the capital of Port-au-Prince – including the national stadium – is controlled by violent gangs.

Haiti’s match, the first leg of a home-and-away series against the US, had been booked for Kingston. The Grenadiers played their 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Curaçao, Aruba and Barbados. However, the Nations League format slated Curaçao and Jamaica to host their matches on the same night as Haiti’s, shunting Haiti to Sabina Park, the home of the Jamaica national team until their current venue opened in 1962. Now a cricket ground, Sabina Park hosted two of Haiti’s Nations League qualifiers.

• Lendeborg takes issue with appeals for foul calls

• Forward says he had limited exposure to league

Golden State Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg had an extraordinary NBA debut as he jawed with Luka Dončić and admitted he had largely been exposed to the league through highlights before turning professional.

Lendeborg was given the task of guarding the Los Angeles Lakers star for large parts of Wednesday’s game, which Dončić’s team won 127-105.

The first awarding marked the apex of Gianni Infantino’s hubris. A new version could highlight the good in the world of soccer

• Sign up for our free newsletter here

Poor Fifa peace prize. Unloved, unliked, mocked, tainted by association with its first winner. And now demoted, too, after Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, dumped the thing on the global governing body’s “social responsibility committee” to look after. To redeem it, rather than to ditch it, to spare Infantino the embarrassment of acknowledging that his fake prize was really just a fake prize all along.

Here is where we should probably acknowledge that, as fake prizes go, and in the context of what it was intended to accomplish, the first awarding of the Fifa peace prize was an unqualified success. It achieved exactly what it was meant to, made by Infantino to flatter Donald Trump, the man he needed to keep on his side to safeguard the riches to be extracted from the North American market in order to consolidate his power base within Fifa. Trump, the gullible buffoon, was pleased as punch – handed a big, golden bauble and a medal he placed around his own neck – and briefly forgot about the Nobel peace prize he desperately covets.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: US Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.

The reigning champions must deal with the absence of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for some time, while fans at Anfield were thrilled by Rio Ngumoha

Paris Saint-Germain beat Barcelona 4-2 on Tuesday, but the reigning champions lost the best player in last season’s tournament, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. This autumn has seen much lobbying for the Ballon d’Or, with the Georgian a popular choice, despite his absence from the World Cup. He is expected to be out for six months, although Rodri’s comeback from serious injury – he was rested by Barcelona on Tuesday until coming off the bench in the 60th minute – shows it can take far longer than that for players to rediscover their highest level.

The early standouts have emerged. But even the best teams have flaws that can be exposed by their opponents

Who would have thought the 49ers would be here after a rough old offseason? Head coach Kyle Shanahan’s participation in training camp was limited due to a serious car crash, team owner Jed York’s visit to an Ohio trailer park did not end well, and one player after another endured serious injuries. Despite all this, San Francisco are full of positive vibes. They are top of a tough division and their immense defense, led by the intensity of players such as safety Malik Mustapha and Fred Warner, is complemented by an equally impressive offense.

• Title is club’s first-ever since 2023 founding

• St Louis clubs have won 11 Open Cups all-time

• Daniel Edelman nets winner in 5-4 win on penalties

For much of the 20th century, winning the US Open Cup required a team to beat someone from St Louis. The Gateway City was home to many of the nation’s best teams during some ramshackle eras of soccer in the United States, with six different clubs combining for 10 trophy lifts. The most recent came in 1988, when St Louis Busch Seniors beat San Francisco-based Greek-American AC in the last throes of a tournament history dominated by amateur and semi-pro teams. MLS has won every Open Cup but one since starting play in 1996, and St Louis didn’t have an MLS club until 2023.

From the beginning, club figures spoke of their aim to restore the city to soccer prominence. Well, mission accomplished. St Louis City are US Open Cup champions, outlasting the Columbus Crew 5-4 on penalties to end the city’s 38-year wait for a major US soccer title and earn a place in the field for the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup.

• Edwards hits nine threes in 45-point explosion

• Antetokounmpo scores 35 in first game with Heat

• Minnesota rout Miami 131-106 in season opener

Anthony Edwards scored 45 points as he and the Minnesota Timberwolves spoiled Giannis Antetokounmpo’s debut with the Miami Heat in an emphatic 131-106 season-opening win on Wednesday night.

Edwards became just the third player in NBA history to record multiple 40-point games in season openers, joining Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan.

• Defensive end played for Chiefs for eight seasons

• Andy Reid says player’s death ‘makes you sick’

Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have spoken of their sadness after former Kansas City Chief Allen Bailey died at the age of 37.

The defensive end was found dead at his home in Florida on Tuesday by his wife. He is believed to have died from natural causes.

• Tournament coming to the US for the first time

• Rose says tournament is a huge opportunity

World Rugby has appointed Megan Rose, an American tennis pro turned United States Tennis Association (USTA) executive, as managing director of the 2031 men’s Rugby World Cup, a key appointment as the governing body prepares to host what is by some measures the third-biggest global sporting event on American soil for the first time.

Rose said: “Rugby World Cup is one of the iconic events in global sport, defined by unforgettable moments on the pitch and the passion of fans around the world. To be entrusted with bringing Men’s Rugby World Cup to the United States for the first time is an extraordinary honour, and I’m thrilled to join this team.”

With You Can See Everything, Holmes joins other such high-profile subjects as Lance Armstrong, Imelda Marcos and Anthony Weiner to allow film-makers to document their lives. But do they ever come out well?

In You Can See Everything, convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes invites film-makers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into her home in a supposed act of “radical transparency”. Holmes is filmed, along with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two young children, in the weeks before starting a prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors. “The best way for people to see who she is,” Evans says, “is to give as much access as possible into our daily lives”. It may also be the best way to market “Theranos 2.0”, which the couple are working on during filming. But the documentary questions whether Holmes is presenting her authentic self or a manufactured persona. Fielder speaks for the audience when he asks Holmes in a tense exchange whether she’s “being real” with him. “I’m always being real,” she says.

That question of authenticity is at the heart of documentary film-making. You Can See Everything is as much about the ambiguous relationship between film-maker and subject as it is about Holmes herself. There is often a power struggle over narrative control in documentaries, with both sides of the dynamic wanting different outcomes from the final film. Watching You Can See Everything inevitably prompts the question: why would Holmes, days before she heads to jail, invite the scrutiny of a film crew?

• Player fetched firearm after altercation with JC Latham

• Tennessee released defensive tackle on Tuesday

• Robert Saleh calls situation ‘lapse in judgement’

Tennessee Titans coach Robert Saleh confirmed on Wednesday that defensive tackle Jordan Elliott was released after pulling a gun in the parking lot of the team facility but said it was a “terrible lapse in judgment that I recognize as a call for help more than a criminal act”.

The Titans had announced Tuesday that Elliott was released, but said only that it came after his involvement in an unspecified incident at the team’s facility five days earlier.

A Washington referendum has drawn broad opposition from adults who work with queer and trans teens

For Kelsey Gellner, a Seattle-based pediatric nurse, a statewide proposal to bar trans girls from sports participation feels like a violation of her duty as a medical professional. The ballot initiative includes a requirement she calls “invasive and extreme”: all students who wish to compete on girls’ teams would have to undergo genital exams.

“I tell my kids and patients that my No 1 job is to keep them safe,” said Gellner, who is also a board member of the Washington State Nurses Association. “I can say with confidence that girls do not want to have an unnecessary exam that creates an unsafe barrier.”