​Image source, Getty Images. ByJoe Bradshaw. BBC Sport senior journalist. 30 minutes ago. This is the 90th Masters. There have been a total of 10 European golfers to win at Augusta National since a Spaniard broke the duck in 1980.. How many of them can you name?. [embedded content]. What information do we collect from this quiz?. After more quizzes? Go to our dedicated Football Quizzes and Sports Quizzes pages and sign up for notifications to get the latest quizzes sent straight to your device.. Related topics. Golf  

​Image source, Getty Images. ByElizabeth Botcherby. BBC Sport journalist. 35 minutes ago. Minnesota United have denied rumours that midfielder James Rodriguez is suffering from a potentially life-threatening muscle-wasting condition.. The Colombia international returned to the club’s training ground on Monday after being hospitalised.. Rodriguez, 34, showed signs of illness during Colombia’s 3-1 defeat by France on 29 March and subsequently spent three days in hospital with severe dehydration.. A statement from the Colombia Football Federation on 2 April confirmed Rodriguez was under observation for a “non-sports-related medical condition” but said his prognosis was “favourable”.. Social media rumours and reports in some US media sparked concerns he was suffering from rhabdomyolysis – a rare condition sometimes linked to over-exertion which causes muscles to disintegrate and can lead to potentially fatal kidney damage when toxic muscle fibres enter the circulatory system.. However, Major League Soccer (MLS) side Minnesota United said:, external “The club and our medical professionals can unequivocally state there has been no clinical or laboratory evidence of rhabdomyolysis.”. Rodriguez, who won two Champions Leagues with Real Madrid and also played for Premier League side Everton, participated in a “supervised return-to-activity session” on Monday. His return to full training will be guided by the club’s medical staff.. Rodriguez has made two MLS appearances since joining Minnesota United in February.. Related topics. Major League Soccer. Football. More on this story. Follow your club with BBC Sport. 12 March. Listen to the latest Football Daily podcast. Get football news sent straight to your phone. 16 August 2025  

​Image source, EPA. 1 hour ago. 28 Comments. Formula 1 is taking a break from racing during April because of the cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix but there is still plenty to talk about.. BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson has been answering your latest questions…. Andrew mentioned in his Japanese GP race report that half of Aston Martin’s time deficit is down to the chassis and therefore not just the Honda engine. Please could he elaborate on exactly what he has learned because this has not been widely reported and I think deserves to be heard, as it does not seem fair to burden all of the blame on to Honda – Kevin. The race report from Suzuka actually mentioned that more than half Aston Martin’s deficit to the front was caused by the chassis.. That information came from a very senior and knowledgeable figure over the course of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.. It also tallies with what other teams are seeing on the GPS data to which all have access, in terms of the cars’ speed on different parts of the track.. The exact split in terms of the losses that can be attributed to car and engine at Aston Martin-Honda is not known, and it’s probably not possible to know, as of course the behaviour of the engine can also have an impact on the cornering performance of the car.. It’s worth adding that, while it’s true that much of the public focus has been on the Honda engine, and especially the severe vibrations that have been causing reliability problems, team principal Adrian Newey has been clear that the car is also lacking.. It’s also the case that it’s not clear where the vibrations are coming from – are they intrinsic to the engine, or is there something about the way the engine is mounted to the chassis that exacerbates them?. In Australia, Newey said that on the chassis side “we’re maybe the fifth best team, so sort of potential Q3 qualifiers on the chassis side, but with the potential to be up front at some point in the season”.. On average over the four qualifying sessions of the first three races, including for the sprint in China, the Aston Martin is 3.6 seconds off the pace.. The fifth fastest team on average are Alpine, at 1.268secs off the pace, followed by Haas at 1.567secs.. So Aston Martin are about 2.3secs off qualifying in the top 10, with the majority down to the chassis and the rest the engine.. In other words, put a Mercedes engine in the car, and it would be about where Alpine or Haas are. Exactly as Newey suggested.. Given the Aston Martin’s troubled birth – effectively starting again when Newey arrived in March last year, a delayed entry into the wind tunnel until April, and a consequent compressed development programme – that sounds entirely feasible.. The car is overweight, and is especially poor in high-speed corners.. The fundamental point, though, is that it doesn’t really matter where exactly the deficit lies between car and engine. Both Aston Martin and Honda are a long way from being competitiv  

​Image source, Getty Images. ByTom McCoy. BBC Sport journalist. 1 hour ago. 98 Comments. No player in Europe comes close to matching Harry Kane’s goalscoring record this season – but could an untimely ankle problem scupper his Ballon d’Or chances?. The Englishman has scored 53 times in 45 appearances for club and country this term but knows goals alone won’t be enough to land the award, which is why he will be desperate to be fit for Bayern Munich’s crunch Champions League game against Real Madrid on Tuesday (20:00 BST).. Kane, who missed Saturday’s dramatic 3-2 victory at Freiburg because of the injury, ended his trophy drought by winning the Bundesliga last season, but more domestic honours in Germany won’t secure him football’s most prestigious individual prize.. Rightly or wrongly, the Ballon d’Or isn’t simply a case of rewarding solo brilliance. It is increasingly a prerequisite to also being part of a team that lands one of the game’s biggest titles – the Champions League, World Cup or a continental equivalent such as the European Championship.. Kane will get two bites at the cherry this year, captaining England at the World Cup in the summer, but his first – and arguably best – chance comes with Bayern.. The Bavarians have been in scintillating form this season, winning 37 of 43 games, but will need their talisman fit and firing as their European credentials are tested in a quarter-final first leg at the Bernabeu.. “I could score 100 goals this season, but if I don’t win the Champions League or the World Cup, you’re probably not going to win the Ballon d’Or,” Kane said in November. “It’s the same with any player. You have to be winning those major trophies.”. History suggests he is right. Since 2006, almost 80% of Ballon d’Or winners have claimed the accolade in a year when they also lifted either the Champions League or a major international tournament, such as the World Cup, Euros or Copa America.. Only two players have defied that trend in the past two decades and both are all-time greats who can be considered outliers. Lionel Messi won the award in 2010, 2012 and 2019 despite Champions League semi-final exits for his Barcelona side, with Cristiano Ronaldo taking the prize in 2013, when Real Madrid bowed out of the competition at the same stage.. [embedded content]. The pattern is even more pronounced in recent seasons. Ten of the previous 11 Ballon d’Or winners did so off the back of a Champions League victory or major international title, including each of the past five.. Changes to the award, created by France Football magazine in 1956, may have exacerbated this. Until 2021, players were honoured for performances over a calendar year, straddling two different seasons. But since 2022 it has been aligned with a single campaign in the elite European leagues, starting in August.. Journalists from the top 100 Fifa-ranked nations decide who wins and are encouraged to factor in “individual performances” along with “class and fair play”.  

​Image source, Getty Images. ByMarcus Alves. BBC Sport. 2 hours ago. 69 Comments. Viktor Gyokeres was on his way to the team bus when he spotted a fan holding a sign asking for a statue to be built for him.. He could not help but smile.. “I love you all,” the Sweden striker said as he left Lisbon town hall after Sporting’s back-to-back Portuguese league title celebrations last May.. Almost a year on, he will be reunited with those same fans on Tuesday as Sporting host Arsenal in the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final.. It is the first time Sporting have reached this stage of the competition in the Champions League era, but that is no accident – the club are enjoying their best spell in modern times, both on and off the pitch.. Over the past five seasons, they have been crowned Portuguese champions three times, have found peace after several years of internal turmoil and reached financial stability.. Sporting have posted a profit in their annual accounts for a fourth consecutive season, making a combined 82.3m euros over that period.. It feels ironic that the player who had the biggest impact throughout that run will now return looking to bring this fairytale to an end.. Is Gyokeres struggling to adapt or being misused?. 2 January. ‘One of the best deals in their history’. Such was Gyokeres’ influence in the green half of Lisbon after joining from Coventry City in 2023 (97 goals in 102 matches) that only three footballers in Portuguese history have a better goals-per-game ratio than him: Fernando Peyroteo (526 goals in 325 matches), Eusebio (475 goals in 452 matches) and Mario Jardel (239 goals in 250 matches).. “He was one of the best, if not the best, deals in their history,” Sporting legend and former Portugal international Ricardo Sa Pinto told BBC Sport.. “First, in footballing terms, without a doubt a top signing – one of the most impressive players Sporting have ever had. Then financially as well.. “At the time, people were a bit apprehensive – paying around 20m euros for a Coventry player, with no real track record or CV. He had talent, everyone could see that, but still.. “So full credit must go to the recruitment department, because they identified a huge opportunity. Of course, we would all have liked him to stay, but at 26 or 27, after two great seasons, it’s natural for a player to want to move to another league, a different level, with different objectives.”. Despite all that, it remains to be seen how Sporting fans will welcome Gyokeres, 27, back following a tumultuous summer involving his Arsenal move.. “It was sad. But there was nothing I could have done differently. It wasn’t something I could control,” the forward has said.. Until the deal was finalised, the Swede failed to report for pre-season, missed several training sessions and refused to return to Lisbon.. “He should still be welcomed with a huge ovation and real gratitude from all of us. Of course, departures are always complicated,” Sa Pinto said.. “There was a