Football League heads for dramatic finale, Bayern chase title and more – matchday live

15 hours ago 6

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Barney’s regular Saturday column is about a young man who, on Wednesday night, came agonisingly close to breaking the internet

Lamine Yamal was the buildup, the takeaway and also the TV commentary to this game, which for long periods was just Rio Ferdinand saying “OH MY GOD” a lot. In the second half you kept having to check the score to make sure it wasn’t actually 6-1 to Barcelona (Lamine Yamal 6), as opposed to a 3-3 draw and a good away result for Inter.

On this weekend five years ago there was no football, just Covid and a whole lotta fear. Barney Ronay has been looking at how the pandemic changed sport – for richer and poorer.

The pandemic had a start date. But the closest we got to a national throwing-off of the shackles, our own VV day, was July 2021 and the sight of a lone England football supporter placing a flare between his buttock cheeks before releasing it into the air of central London. This was our healing moment, our iconography of closure, our own white cliffs and union flags.

This morning's headlines

Preamble

Hello and welcome to live coverage of another super soccer-filled Saturday. This is our home for all the latest news and previews ahead of today’s action, which begins at 12.30pm with Aston Villa v Fulham and the last day of the regular Championship season. Then we have the final round of fixtures in Leagues One and Two, plus Bayern Munich’s chance to win back the Bundesliga after a shocking one-season drought.

At 11am we’ll have a special Q&A with Ben Fisher, who knows more about the Football League than 99.82 per cent of sentient beings, so please send in any questions for that. You can contact us at [email protected] or post below the line.

Before we get started, these are some of the key matches we’ll be following today.

Premier League