Neymar's motivation to become one of Brazil's greatest players, the one expected to lead the team to its first Olympic gold medal, is no secret.

Few footballers divide opinion quite like the mercurially talented Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic and until the AC Milan star delivers on the international stage, that is unlikely to change.

It was a mark of the progress that Karim Benzema has made over the last 18 months that his inclusion in France's preliminary squad for Euro 2012 did not raise a single eyebrow.

From zeros to heroes, chumps to champs: in three short months Roberto Di Matteo steered Chelsea back from the precipice to the greatest moment in the club's history.

Lots of money, lots of luck, and players who didn't care about winning ugly — just so long as they won — turned Chelsea into the champions of Europe.

A large swath of London-centric fans is likely to be screaming that most Germanic of soccer names Saturday during the Champions League final.

A match programme for the 1909 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Bristol City fetched a world-record price of £23,500 ($37,600) at a public auction on Tuesday.

Decades after the invention of spy satellites capable of detecting a golf ball from outer space, referees may soon be equipped with technology that will enable them to tell if a football has crossed the goal-line.

Arguably the Premier League's greatest season came to a sensational conclusion on Sunday as Manchester City won the title thanks to two stoppage-time strikes in a 3-2 victory over QPR.

Manchester City's players are champions of England - yes, that is a phrase we're all going to have to get accustomed to - because they believed in themselves like those at Manchester United used to.