It s nearly four years since Didier Deschamps became only the third man to win the World Cup as a player and coach, as he guided France to their second success on football s grandest stage.

The target now for Les Bleus is to become the first nation since Brazil in 1962 to retain their crown, and that journey begins on Friday with the draw for the group stage of Qatar 2022.

Four years is a long time to wait for anything, but the draw for the World Cup is always a milestone event that sees the anticipation taken up a notch.

The eyes of the football world will be on the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center, where the eight groups will be drawn and potential routes to December s finale can start being plotted.

But there is a little more to the draw than that…

Juventus star Paulo Dybala will not sign a new contract and will leave the Italian giants in the summer of 2022, according to . Dybala, who can operate as a forward or as an attacking midfielder, is out of contract at Juventus at the end of the season and plans to leave the Italian giants on a free transfer.

Dybala has been on the books of Juventus since 2015 and has been an important player for the European giants over the years. The 28-year-old has won Serie A as many as five times with the Bianconeri. Dybala has made 13 starts and two substitute appearances in the league so far this season, scoring six goals and providing three assists in the process.

The Argentina international has also made three starts and one substitute appearance in the Champions League for Juve…

Watch world class soccer in USA! International Champions Cup takes place this Summer 2014 in USA from July 26 August 4.

The second edition of the International Champions Cup takes place in United States from July 26 to August 4, with eight European giants taking part in the highly rated friendly tournament. Teams will be divided into two groups of four, where group winners will meet in the final at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida. Exclusive tickets for all thirteen fixtures can be .

Spanish giants Real Madrid lifted the title at the opening tournament last year having recorded a 3-1 triumph over Premier League side Chelsea, with AC Milan finishing in third place. And while reigning Europa League winners will not be participating this time out, the groups feature star…

Harry Kane is England s greatest ever player and a certainty to start Sunday s Euro 2024 final versus Spain, says former Three Lions defender Gary Neville.

Kane has scored three goals to help England to a second straight Euros final, including an equaliser from the penalty spot in Wednesday s semi-final win over the Netherlands.

However, the Bayern Munich star s performance levels have been criticised throughout the tournament and it was his replacement from the bench, Ollie Watkins, who steered England into the final with a last-minute winner versus the Oranje.

Ivan Toney also replaced Kane to good effect against Switzerland in the quarter-finals, converting a no-look penalty as England triumphed on spot-kicks, and some have suggested Gareth Southgate should dro…

MLS has altered its playoff format, introducing series for the first round similar to those seen in other American sports.

Like the NFL, the NBA, MLB and the NHL, MLS has always used a postseason format to decide its annual champions.

But from the coming season, which kicks off this weekend, it will follow in the footsteps of basketball, baseball and hockey with a further tweak.

For the first round of the playoffs – after the wild card matches – teams will play best-of-three series.

These will involve eight teams from each conference, including the winners of the wild card matches between the eighth and ninth seeds.

Again following the lead of the NBA, MLB and the NHL, every game in the series must have a winner, with penalties required if the…

Massimiliano Allegri says Juventus are a different beast to the one who stumbled in the Champions League final two years ago and he will accept nothing but victory against Real Madrid on Saturday.

As they will be in Cardiff, Juve sought a treble when they faced Barcelona in Berlin, but they were left dented by a 3-1 defeat.

Allegri freely admits that his side then had not reached the final out of expectation, but he says with a sixth straight Serie A title and the Coppa Italia in the bag that this year feels much different.

He told a news conference: In 2015 we got to the final but at the same time we were not strongly motivated, we were not confident enough because we had lots of years of struggle in the Champions League.

We certainly didn t end up in …

Middlesbrough announced they had sacked Gareth Southgate as manager on this day in 2009.

Southgate was appointed as Steve McClaren’s successor just weeks after captaining Boro in their UEFA Cup final defeat to Sevilla in 2006, his final match as a player.

The former England defender kept the club in the Premier League with 12th and 13th-placed finishes but Boro slipped into the second tier in 2009.

Southgate’s dismissal came just hours after the Teessiders ended a run of three successive home defeats with a 2-0 victory against Derby, which left them one point off the top of the Championship table.

In a statement released on the club website, chairman Steve Gibson said: “This has been the most difficult decision I have had to make in all the time I h…

If your NFL survivor pool were a video game, Week 12 would be that one crazy-difficult level that you just keep dying on. 

Think World 8-3 from the 8-bit Mario Bros. with the god damn turtles that throw the hammers. How many times did you Gronk spike that Nintendo controller into your living room floor out of frustration? 

You may be swapping out the video game buttons for the remote control when it comes to your NFL Week 12 survivor pool picks. There are no layups on the board, with only one team favored by a touchdown (and that’s Dallas on Thanksgiving). 

And, depending on how your pool is shaped, the three-game holiday slate may be a week of its own (like in the Circa Survivor Pool in Las Vegas). That format limits your Thanksgiv…

The Las Vegas Raiders face a trip to Nashville to meet the Tennessee Titans, and both teams are still looking for their first win of the young season.

Now the Raiders get the road win in Week 3, while the defending AFC South champ Titans attempt to get back on track themselves.

Find where the betting edge lies in our NFL picks and predictions for the Las Vegas Raiders vs. Tennessee Titans.

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You won’t find sack props as easily as it is sifting through NFL odds for skill position players, but several bigger books are starting to put out sack odds on the league’s top pass rushers.

I’m looking at two of the NFL’s best this week as I back Chris Jones against a brutal Bears offensive line, while also putting my money on T.J. Watt. Here are my favorite NFL picks when it comes to sack props in the Week 3 odds slate.

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