Tag Futebol

Newcastle United’s Carabao Cup campaign continues. Eddie Howe’s fine record against Tottenham Hotspur continues. The sense that the Magpies are gearing up for yet another glittering chapter in this incredible story grows stronger.

A pair of headers got the job done against Thomas Frank’s Spurs, courtesy of centre-back Fabian Schar and new striker Nick Woltemade, who arrived from Stuttgart for a club-record £69m fee in August, replacing Alexander Isak.

The German striker faced his detractors upon that high-profile and much-scrutinised move to the Premier League, but he’s passing each test with flying colours, and he proved his worth once again with a strong performance in the cup.

Nick Woltemade continues to impress

Woltemade, 23, has scored six goals from just 11 matches in a Newcastle shirt. That’s quite the return for a raw, up-and-coming forward trying their hand in a new country for the first time.

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But he’s been immense, and his confident header against Tottenham, latching onto Joe Willock’s cross, underscored the quality and potential still to come.

Woltemade has drawn all the plaudits, with onlookers singing his praises once again as he helped his team advance to the quarter-finals. Yet again, he proved he’s more than just a goalscorer, creating two chances and winning four duels (as per Sofascore).

However, he wasn’t the best player on the pitch, and that’s a testament to the outfit Howe has crafted.

Indeed, there’s one man in particular who is starting to look like one of the very best in the business.

Newcastle's "absolute joke" outplayed Woltemade

Newcastle are defined by their recruitment, and while you could pick any number of Howe signings as jackpot additions, none stand taller than Sandro Tonali, whose rise has been well-documented over the past year, and yet he still shocks onlookers with his quality.

After a tough maiden year in England, the Italy international has grown into his skin and is now one of the Premier League’s best players. He simply has so many dimensions to choose from, and was praised to no end for his Man of the Match performance.

Described as an “absolute joke” who “just keeps getting better and better” by journalist Andy Sixsmith, there’s a feeling across Tyneside that the 26-year-old could be the key to shattering expectations this term, and he took Newcastle that step closer with a controlled performance against the Lilywhites.

Schar opened the scoring in the first half, but it was Tonali’s inch-perfect delivery that found the Swiss’s head. This is a man of many talents, who won both of his tackles and made seven ball recoveries besides.

But most impressive of all is that the 92-touch Tonali lost the ball only three times on the evening. He was sitting in the centre of the park, and yet he was almost untouchable as he orchestrated and engineered.

The Shields Gazette were blown away by the tireless performance, hailing Tonali’s 9/10 display and drawing attention to his energy and quality. In a sentence: he was peerless in the middle of the park.

Tonali just continues to be so effortlessly good. His football is a work of art, but he’s tenacious and gripping too, absolutely a completely-shaped midfielder.

Woltemade might be the goal-getter, and someone like Bruno Guimaraes the stylish leader, but Tonali is the metronome, making everyone tick.

Not just Joelinton: Newcastle's "true legend" may now be on borrowed time

Newcastle may well part ways with this Howe mainstay at the end of the campaign.

ByAngus Sinclair Oct 29, 2025

She has changed her game, and the five-match T20I series in England could be Shafali’s way back into the ODI side in a World Cup year

S Sudarshanan27-Jun-2025This will be Shafali Verma’s third tour of England, but a lot has changed since the previous ones. For starters, she is not a teenager anymore.When Shafali first toured England for the multi-format series in 2021, she was only a T20I cricketer. She made her debut in ODIs and Test cricket on that tour. Around the time of the England tour – for the Commonwealth Games followed by the bilateral series – in 2022, India were happy with the high-impact knocks she produced despite her inconsistency. It was a risk-versus-reward trade-off that worked for both India and Shafali.Cut to mid-2025, and Shafali has just earned a recall to the T20I side and is still out of favour in ODIs in a home World Cup year. After India crashed out in the league stage of the T20 World Cup 2024, Shafali’s place in the team seemed untenable. Not that India found other batters who could attack from get-go like she could – there aren’t many who can do it anywhere in the world, let alone in India. She was dropped anyway.Related

• Harmanpreet embraces 'happy headache' with India's depth on the rise

• Mandhana: 'Shafali deserves this comeback and I'm really excited to open with her again'

• Home World Cup in Beaumont's radar after three-year absence from England T20I side

• India's road to T20 World Cup 2026: what's right and what's not

• She gets knocked down but she gets up again – Sneh Rana

In hindsight, the timing of her exclusion perhaps worked well for Shafali, in that she was able to play the whole of the 50-over domestic competitions. She captained Haryana to a quarter-final finish in the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy and topped the run-scoring charts – 527 runs at an average above 75 and a strike rate of 152.31. Only one other batter (Kiran Navgire) batted at a higher strike rate in the entire competition, but she scored only 116.Shafali then played the Senior Women’s One Day Challenger Trophy, a competition in which best performers in the one-dayers are picked by the national selectors. She topped the charts there, too, as captain of Team A – 414 runs at an average of 82.80 and a strike rate of 145.26. She had scored close to 200 runs more than the next best, and no one else scored at a higher pace in the competition.In WPL 2025, Shafali was the leading run-scorer for runners-up Delhi Capitals (DC) – and fourth-best overall – and she could no longer be left out of India’s T20I side. That India played only one T20I series since her axing did not matter, they have their premier opener back as the road to the 2026 T20 World Cup starts.But what has changed in Shafali’s game in the intervening period? How is she scoring with such regularity, which she couldn’t earlier?

“Her power game is natural, no one hits sixes at will like her in the women’s game. I told her to not leave behind the qualities that have brought her here. She is a different cricketer, I selected her for the first time based on that”DC assistant coach and former India chief selector Hemlata Kala

“She has worked on keeping herself cool,” DC assistant coach Hemlata Kala told ESPNcricinfo. “In the WPL, she tried to play longer innings and not getting out inside the powerplay.”Everyone said she only bats for 10-15 overs [in one-day cricket]. But she batted for longer in [the domestic] one-dayers, struck back-to-back hundreds. Even in multi-day (Senior Women’s Multi-Day Challenger Trophy) she played well. She has now consistently started playing longer innings. It is not that she didn’t do it before – she has hit 130-140 in Under-23 cricket. She has the ability, but in T20s she tries to make best use of the powerplay.”Former India international Kala was the chief selector when Shafali, aged 15, made her international debut. Apart from being with DC, Kala was also part of the coaching staff for teams in the one-day and multi-day Challenger Trophy and witnessed the damage Shafali could inflict as an opposition player.”I keep telling her, no one has the mindset she has – of hitting sixes from ball one,” Kala said. “Whenever I talk to her, I tell her, ‘don’t leave your game’. Her power game is natural, no one hits sixes at will like her in the women’s game. I told her to not leave behind the qualities that have brought her here. She is a different cricketer, I selected her for the first time based on that.”Pratika Rawal and Harleen Deol have been in India’s top-three in ODIs in the recent past•SLCConsciously, though, Kala also instilled in Shafali the importance of rotating strike and not getting bogged down while going for big hits. She has worked on finding gaps when the field spreads.”As you all know, my starts are good but building an innings has been an issue,” Shafali had said earlier this year. “But now, I am focusing on how to get those singles, how to build the innings, how to do well for the team.”Some of that was on display in the WPL, where she did not seem desperate to power deliveries away. She showed restraint even in the powerplay. But she did not let it affect her overall strike rate (152.76 in 2025 vs 156.85 in 2024) much.The five-match T20I series in England could be Shafali’s way back into the ODI side. After the three games in England, India have one more series before the World Cup – a three-ODI series against Australia at home. Whether Shafali makes it there and what the implications on the other top-order batters – Pratika Rawal has been the ODI opener and Harleen Deol the No. 3 – is anybody’s guess.Third time could indeed be a charm for Shafali.