Image caption, Khadija Shaw is the top goalscorer in the Women's Super League this season If Khadija Shaw is on your team, you have a very good chance of winning. She's that good, her Manchester City team-mate Sam Coffey felt like she was watching a video game with Shaw the star of the show. I said earlier that I feel like I'm playing Fifa. You can score three goals like that in 20 minutes? the bewildered US international said after their emphatic 5-2 win over Spurs. It was actually three goals in 13 minutes - the fastest hat-trick in Women's Super League history - and City fans are so desperate to keep Shaw at the club that, each time she scored, they chanted sign her up on repeat.

AFCON: To walk or not to walk? Game Theory AFCON: To walk or not to walk? In the AFCON final between Morocco and Senegal, tensions spilled beyond the touchline, when Senegal walked off the pitch. For a few minutes, the outcome risked being shaped by the rulebook, not the football. Samantha Johnson looks at that AFCON final and the fallout.

When the president of the Confederation of African Football, Patrice Motsepe, announced plans to move AFCON from a two-year to a four-year cycle, it raised a big question: Who actually benefits from that change? Samantha Johnson speaks to sports analyst Usher Komugisha about the power dynamics shaping the debate, and what it could mean for African football. Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua: Is this good for Boxing?

Is AI taking the fun out of fantasy football? For years, fantasy football has given every armchair manager the space to back up claims they could do a better job than the real thing. Whether you're competing against workmates, family members or strangers, the ability to pull together your own dream team is irresistible to millions of football fans. The competitive pastime has spawned a whole industry of content creators offering weekly tips for anyone looking to gain an edge as they sift through stats and manage transfers. Recently, more players have been turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for advice - but not everyone agrees they have a place in the virtual dugout.

Football, under French colonial rule, was built to exclude them. So Algerians built their own club. The Sports Association in Constantine may have laid the foundations in 1898, but it was MC Alger, founded in 1921 who was the first football club that sparked a statement of identity, resistance and belonging. Samantha Johnson looks at how a football club fought colonial rule. Why does Israel play in European Football?

Aston Villa are going for a fourth successive Premier League victory when they travel to Brighton on Wednesday, but should Unai Emery's side change the way they have been scoring goals on their winning run? There is apparently some debate about whether Villa's xG (expected goals) is unsustainable because they are scoring from long range, but that's nonsense, said BBC Sport football expert Chris Sutton. Villa have good players who can shoot from the edge of the box, so are you seriously going to tell them not to shoot now, because of xG? Give me a break. Sutton is making predictions for all 380 Premier League games this season, against AI, BBC Sport readers and a variety of guests. For the midweek fixtures in week 14, he takes on musician, author and Fulham fan Felix White. White is the guitarist with The Maccabees and 86TVs. His new book'Whatever will be, will be: A Matter of Life and Football' is out now.

How many times has Israel violated the ceasefire? How Israel is using'no war, no peace' model in Gaza How is Israel using PR firms to frame its war? Football's Pep Guardiola calls on fans to attend Palestine charity match NewsFeed Football's Pep Guardiola calls on fans to attend Palestine charity match Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola urged football fans to support an upcoming charity match featuring Palestine's national team at Barcelona's stadium, with the proceeds set to be donated to aid projects in Palestine. Ukraine's Kyiv pounded by hundreds of Russian drones Italian prosecutors investigate Bosnian war'sniper safaris' How many times has Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire?

England have cruised through World Cup qualifying, winning all seven of their games and scoring 20 unanswered goals, setting several records and leaving them on the cusp of another. If Thomas Tuchel's team beat Albania in Sunday's final qualifier (17:00 GMT) and keep a clean sheet, they will become the first European side to play at least six qualifiers and win them all without conceding. A clean sweep of victories - regardless of goals conceded - is also a rare achievement. Excluding the early years of the World Cup, when teams often played just a handful of preliminary matches, only four European countries have finished with a 100% winning record. Germany were the last side to do so on the way to the 2018 tournament, though they went on to suffer a shock early exit in Russia.

In football, attacking teams attempt to break through the opponent's defensive line to create scoring opportunities. This action, known as a Line Break, is a critical indicator of offensive effectiveness and tactical performance, yet previous studies have mainly focused on shots or goal opportunities rather than on how teams break the defensive line. In this study, we develop a machine learning model to predict Line Breaks using event and tracking data from the 2023 J1 League season. The model incorporates 189 features, including player positions, velocities, and spatial configurations, and employs an XGBoost classifier to estimate the probability of Line Breaks. The proposed model achieved high predictive accuracy, with an AUC of 0.982 and a Brier score of 0.015. Furthermore, SHAP analysis revealed that factors such as offensive player speed, gaps in the defensive line, and offensive players' spatial distributions significantly contribute to the occurrence of Line Breaks. Finally, we found a moderate positive correlation between the predicted probability of being Line-Broken and the number of shots and crosses conceded at the team level. These results suggest that Line Breaks are closely linked to the creation of scoring opportunities and provide a quantitative framework for understanding tactical dynamics in football.

Game Theory: Is Moroccan football in its Golden Era? For decades, football's talent pipeline has flowed from Africa to Europe. But Morocco is reversing that trend. Samantha Johnson looks at how Morocco's football ecosystem can challenge football's traditional hierarchy. What's behind bans on away fans?