Sports
The retro kick-off tactic that is proving popular (and effective) at Euro 2024
It was the first act of Euro 2024, it led to Albania’s goal against Italy (the fastest in the competition’s history), and is also a tactic used regularly by the top two in the Premier League, Manchester City and Arsenal.
Back with a vengeance, it is the old-fashioned hoof up the park at kick-off.
Aimless punts may seem like a relic of a bygone age in today’s football, largely a revolving battle between one team pressing high and the other trying to find space to play through, but this more rudimentary approach is back in fashion.
Nedim Bajrami celebrates after scoring in just 23 seconds (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)
Kai Havertz got things underway on Friday by overlooking the creative supporting cast of Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala and Ilkay Gundogan, instead playing the ball back to left-back Maximilian Mittelstadt and leading a charge towards the Scotland penalty box.
The Stuttgart defender duly played a long ball for Havertz to contest in the air. After the ball broke inside the Scotland penalty box, it took two frantic clearances to get the ball away from danger, but Germany now had controlled possession with Toni Kroos inside the attacking half and Scotland were pinned back.
It set the tone from the first kick, as did Albania’s diagonal to the right wing against Italy the following day. The ball floated out for a throw, but Sylvinho’s side sprinted forward to pen the Italians in their own corner. After struggling to decide on an option, Federico Dimarco attempted to reach Alessandro Bastoni inside his own penalty box with his throw, but it was cut out by Nedim Bajrami and he found the net only 23 seconds into the game.
After the first round of games in Germany, 14 of the 24 teams played long either towards the opposition penalty box or launched a diagonal into the wide channel from start-of-half kick-offs, as shown below.

Some took different routes there: England emptied the entire centre of the pitch as Jordan Pickford pushed up to play to Harry Kane; Poland had five players lined up on the far side at kick-off against the Netherlands but used it as a decoy, with Piotr Zielinski running across onto the ball and spraying it wide to the other flank and the ball then going forward; Austria attempted a sophisticated routine by playing a short combination of passes in the centre circle before trying to play the ball over the top of France.
Possession purists Italy positioned five players on the halfway line to give the impression they were going direct, with Alessandro Bastoni stopping the ball dead in front of Riccardo Calafiori as if teeing him up, but it was a disguise to force Albania to drop back and give them space to have controlled possession.
It returned the game to a more natural setup and is something Arsenal did on the few occasions last season they did not go long from David Raya, with the Spaniard putting his studs on the ball and two players dropping back late to give them the numbers to build up against a set defence.
It is a trend that has crept back into the game after a long time out when teams looked to implement their passing style from the very first whistle.

Aaron Briggs, who was an analyst at Manchester City before working as assistant coach at Monaco and Wolfsburg, is working as a consultant at UEFA tracking the tactical trends at Euro 2024. This is a theme he has seen re-appear.
“The kick-off is such a strange time in football as it’s the only time it’s like a rugby game with both teams either side of the ball,” he says.
“You see top teams go completely against all their principles in that one false moment.
“You usually end up back at the goalkeeper under pressure and then end up going long, which is less advantageous than going long straight from the centre circle as you can go deeper into their half.
“When you play the diagonal, you can challenge for a 50-50 and the knockdown, or it goes out for a throw and you then try to press onto that first ball and keep them in. It’s like rugby and kicking for territory, but the last couple of years it’s become common again.
“At coaching courses, we’ve been shown that when teams play short, they end up under stress and going long, so this is maybe how it has spread.”
Marseille did something novel in 2017-18 — the season they reached the Europa League final — by kicking the ball straight into the far corner with no forward runners to challenge for the ball.
It was like the 50-22 rule in rugby union that means if the attacking team kicks the ball from their own half and it bounces inside the 22-yard line before going out, then the kicking team is awarded the lineout rather than the opposition.
There is no such reward in football, but it still marks a change from the previous decade, perhaps influenced by the dominance of Spain and tiki-taka, when the ball would go back to a central midfielder and then across to a full-back, which is when play would start.
Do that now, explains one player-turned-coach, and even a team that typically plays with a low block will look to rush you as the opposition’s energy and aggression are at their highest point, plus they are going to be cohesive and in sync due to the team in possession being compressed in their own half.
It is why he and many other coaches are deeming it a pointless risk and are instead playing for territory.
There have been some examples of creativity beyond hitting and hoping. Sampdoria went through a phase of having all 10 outfielders line up across the halfway line and split into different positions, while RB Leipzig scored from a similar tactic a decade ago in the lower tiers of German football.
Two years ago, Kylian Mbappe scored for Paris Saint-Germain against Lille inside eight seconds in what was a brilliantly worked routine in which two runners caught the defence cold.
WHAT A START! 😱
It’s taken Kylian Mbappé just 8 SECONDS to open the scoring for PSG against Lille 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/ziibIszhWL
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) August 21, 2022
Defences are so used to pedestrian openings to games, with teams looking to establish possession, that there is an opportunity to take them by surprise. Dominic Solanke’s run for Bournemouth against Fulham two years ago was one such example.
Kick-offs are essentially another set-piece moment in a game like a free kick or throw-in, yet it is a unique scenario no one seemed quite sure how to handle.
Now, though, it appears even the elite teams have decided it is best not to play around in unfamiliar surroundings and have identified the benefits of going long.
Sports
Canadian Pride fest president resigns after backlash for comments on transgender athletes in women’s sports
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The president of a Pride fest organizing group in Canada resigned amid immense backlash for comments about transgender athletes in women’s sports.
The Windsor-Essex Pride Fest in Ontario, Canada, announced on social media this week that President Wendi Nicholson has resigned after she commented on the recent reports that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be banning biological males from women’s competitions.
“Effective immediately, Wendi Nicholson has resigned as board president and is no longer affiliated with Windsor-Essex Pride Fest,” the statement said.
A parade attendee waves the Progress Pride flag at the Midsumma Pride March held at St Kilda, Victoria, in Australia Feb. 2, 2025. (Joshua Stanyer/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“We have closely followed the comments people have made about this situation, and while this announcement is an important first step, we agree there is much more we can do. … We realize that people are angry, and we understand why. We ask that you bear with us as we work toward bettering ourselves and uphold our values of equality, inclusion and respect.”
Nicholson made her comments during a radio interview on AM800.
“We have been fighting for women in sports. Now, we get people that come in and go, ‘Well, I can’t make it in this sport, so I’m going to transition and be this,’” Nicholson said.
NEW OLYMPICS CHIEF CALLS FOR ‘PROTECTING’ WOMEN’S CATEGORY AMID GLOBAL TRANS ATHLETE WAVE
“You’ve gone through as Johnny up until you’re 17 or 18. You’re playing in elite sports now. You’re hitting that puberty. You are not as good as what you thought, but then you look and go, ‘Hey if I say my name is Sally, and I’m transgender, I can go and I can beat the crap out of the girls.”
Nicholson added that she has no problem with transgender women participating in sports “until you get to the elite divisions,” and that, as a “woman who has been pioneering for years,” she felt the matter “hits a sore spot.”
Fox News Digital has attempted to reach Nicholson on social media for comment about her recent resignation.
The IOC’s current policy leaves it up to each individual sport’s governing body to establish policies governing transgender athletes. But as the IOC changes its leadership, its policies will change too, The Times of London reported Monday.
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The upcoming policy switch is likely to be announced at the IOC session in February before the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy and comes after a presentation from Dr. Jane Thornton, the IOC’s medical and scientific director, last week, according to The Times.
Thornton’s presentation reportedly showed there were physical advantages in males, including those who took treatments to reduce testosterone levels. A source told the paper the presentation was “very scientific” and unemotional.
“An update was given by the IOC’s director of health, medicine and science to the IOC members last week during the IOC commission meetings,” an IOC spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “The working group is continuing its discussions on this topic, and no decisions have been taken yet. Further information will be provided in due course.”
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Sports
‘Peaceful’ Kai Trump improves in second round of the LPGA Annika event
Kai Trump, a high school senior playing in an LPGA Tour event for reasons beyond her ability to hit a golf ball, went from “definitely really nervous” in the first round Thursday to “very calm and peaceful” Friday in the second.
All in all, an impressive improvement.
Still, Trump, 18, didn’t make the cut, not after finishing last among 108 players with a two-round total of 18-over par, 27 shots behind leader Grace Kim and 17 away from the projected cut line. The granddaughter of President Trump improved eight strokes to a 75 in the second round of the tournament hosted by Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla.
How dramatic was the improvement? Trump had nine bogeys, two doubles and one birdie Thursday. A day later she was briefly under par when she birdied the par-three third hole, but she bogeyed the fourth and triple-bogeyed the par-four fifth hole.
Trump rebounded to birdie three of her next six holes. How relaxed was she? She literally laughed off her triple bogey.
“Things are going to happen,” she said. “Once it happens, you can’t go back in time and fix it. The best thing I could do is move on. Like, I told my caddie, Allan [Kournikova], kind of just started laughing, ‘it is what it is.’
“We got that out of the way, so let’s just move on. It was pretty easy to move on after that.”
Especially on the par-three 12th where she nearly made the first hole-in-one of her life.
“I hit like a tight little draw into it,” Trump said. “Tried not to get too high because of the wind. Yeah, it was a great shot.”
What would she tell her grandfather about the round? “That I hit a great shot on 12 two days in a row.”
“I did everything I could possibly have done for this tournament, so I think if you prepare right, the nerves can … they’re always going to be there, right?,” she said. “They can be a little softened. So I would just say that.”
Critics among and beyond her nearly 9 million social media followers were relentless in noting her obvious privilege for securing a sponsor invitation. Dan Doyle Jr., owner of Pelican Golf Club, cheerfully acknowledged that Trump’s inclusion had little to do with ability and a lot to do with public relations.
“The idea of the exemption, when you go into the history of exemptions, is to bring attention to an event,” Doyle told reporters this week. “You got to see her live, she’s lovely to speak to.
“And she’s brought a lot of viewers through Instagram, and things like that, who normally don’t watch women’s golf. That was the hope. And we’re seeing that now.”
Trump attends the Benjamin School in Palm Beach and will attend the University of Miami next year. She is ranked No. 461 by the American Junior Golf Assn.
Stepping up to the LPGA, complete with a deep gallery of onlookers and a phalanx of Secret Service agents surrounding her, could have been daunting. Trump, though, said the experience was “pretty cool.”
It was an eventful week for Trump. She played nine holes of a pro-am round Monday with tournament host Sorenstam, who empathized with the difficulty of handling an intense swirl of criticism and support.
“I just don’t know how she does it, honestly,” Sorenstam said. “To be 18 years old and hear all the comments, she must be super tough on the inside. I’m sure we can all relate what it’s like to get criticism here and there, but she gets it a thousand times.”
Sorenstam recalled her own exemption for the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 when she became the first woman to play in a men’s PGA Tour event in 58 years. She made a 14-foot putt at the 18th green to give her a 36-hole total of five-over 145. She hurled her golf ball into the grandstand, wiped away tears and was hugged by her husband, David Esch.
“That was, at the time, maybe a little bit of a controversial invite,” Sorenstam said. “In the end, I certainly appreciated it. It just brings attention to the tournament, to the sport and to women’s sports, which I think is what we want.”
Sports
Patriots handle AFC East rival Jets at home behind TreVeyon Henderson’s 3-touchdown night
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The New England Patriots continue to roll, handling their AFC East rival New York Jets, 27-14, on “Thursday Night Football.”
New England extended its lengthy win streak to eight games, improving to 9-2 on the season. Meanwhile, the Jets’ brief win streak, after starting the season 0-7, has come to a close.
Heading into this game, the Patriots were expected to dominate the Jets. While the scoreboard didn’t say so in the end, their rookie running back certainly provided the fireworks.
Drake Maye of the New England Patriots looks to pass during the first half against the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium on Nov. 13, 2025 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
TreVeyon Henderson, who had a breakout game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week with 147 rushing yards and two long touchdown runs, added three more touchdowns to his first-year stat line in this victory.
He was the only Patriots player to find the end zone, starting with the team’s 13-play, 69-yard drive that ended with his entire offensive line pushing him over the goal line to tie the game at seven apiece.
On the Patriots’ next drive, Henderson rushed in from seven yards out to give the Patriots a 14-7 lead to end the first half.
PATRIOTS DRAW PRAISE WITH STORMY UNIFORM DEBUT AGAINST JETS
New England started to pull away after quarterback Drake Maye, an MVP hopeful who had yet another great performance, put together chunk completions to set up an eventual touchdown pass to Henderson, who found himself wide open in the end zone.
Henderson finished the game with 62 rushing yards on 19 carries, while hauling in five catches for 31 yards.
Meanwhile, Justin Fields and the Jets’ offense struggled in yet another outing despite a great 14-play opening drive that ended with the quarterback rushing it in himself.
TreVeyon Henderson of the New England Patriots rushes for a touchdown in front of Isaiah Oliver #26 of the New York Jets during the first half against the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium on Nov. 13, 2025 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Jaiden Tripi/Getty Images)
Fields was coming off a rough game against the Cleveland Browns, though the Jets were able to win thanks to two special teams scores. He threw for only 54 yards with a 60.4 quarterback rating.
Fields was 15-of-26 for 116 yards in this game with a touchdown pass on a broken play to John Metchie III that made it 21-14 in the third quarter. But there were more negative moments than positive for the Jets, including a fumble lost on a low snap in the fourth quarter while the Jets were down just a touchdown.
The Patriots were able to run the fourth-quarter clock out, and give the home crowd what they were hoping for in Mike Vrabel’s first year as a head coach — a winning season.
There is still more work to do, but nine wins put the Patriots above .500.
TreVeyon Henderson of the New England Patriots scores a touchdown during the second quarter against the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium on Nov. 13, 2025 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Kathryn Riley/Getty Images)
Looking more into the box score, Maye was an efficient 25-of-34 for 281 yards with his one touchdown pass to Henderson. Stefon Diggs also led the way with nine catches for 105 yards, a game high, while Mack Hollins and Hunter Henry both caught four passes.
For the Jets, Metchie was the leading receiver with 45 yards on three grabs, while Breece Hall had 58 rushing yards on 14 carries. Fields had 67 yards on 11 runs.
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