The six-time Finnish champions are second in the league behind HJK. Simo Valakari’s team have come through three rounds of qualification to get to this point. In the first round, KuPS overcame FC Noah of Armenia with a 5-1 aggregate victory. FC Worksla from Ukraine were beaten by the Finns in Round 2 with a 2-2 first leg encounter being matched in the return fixture. Lucas Rangel scored in extra-time to send KuPS into a tie with Astana which was completed on Thursday afternoon. Rangel’s hat-trick for KuPS in the away leg was decisive to secure a 5-4 aggregate victory and a clash with Union.

The first international break of the season is over for the 12 Wolves stars involved in European qualifiers and friendlies in recent days. There have been 16 wins for VfL players over the past week, as well as four draws and only one defeat. 

Nelson’s superb volley sparked chaotic scenes at the Emirates with staff and substitutes running onto the pitch to celebrate.

“As a former player, Slaven knows the ins and outs of the dressing room. He has very good connections to people, has valuable experience from a range of aspects in the football business and will make us even better with his expertise,” says Borussia Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl, adding: “Slaven will first get to know the organisation and processes at BVB in the next few weeks and then begin his operational work in full at the start of the new season.”

EURO qualifiers: Defeats for Čvančara and Ranos Both Tomáš Čvančara (Czechia) und Grant-Leon Ranos (Armenia) suffered...

SV Werder Bremen’s action-packed friendly against FC St. Pauli during the international break ended in a 3-3 draw. Justin Njinmah opened the scoring for the Green-Whites’ shortly after kick-off (3’), which was followed by an equaliser from Marcel Hartel not long after (12’). The visitors’ second came just after the break through Elias Saad (50’), but SVW reacted well to going behind, as Jens Stage (54’) and Dawid Kownacki (58’) both found the back of the net in the space of four minutes. Saad scored his second for the visitors (65’), meaning the fixture ended in a deserved draw. SV Werder had more chances in the first half, but St. Pauli were the stronger side after the break.

Jeffrey Gouweleeuw: “The best thing about the first half was that it was still 0-0 at the end of it. We can’t allow ourselves to play like that and give Darmstadt so much possession. We didn’t get stuck into the challenges and weren’t in the game at all. The way their goals were scored was unacceptable; we were far too passive. It wasn’t until we were behind that we started to throw everything forward, which isn’t enough at the end of the day.”

At Bayern, it’s always been a philosophy that the club doesn’t want to spend an over-inflated, ludicrous fee to sign any one player, even if they still have an exceedingly more expensive wage bill than any of the other Bundesliga clubs. With continued success comes continued revenue spikes along with savvy business practices and wise investing on and off the pitch. For those reasons, Bayern shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone for being the financial giants domestically.

A mistake from Ramy Bensebaini gave SC their first corner after three minutes. Ritsu Doan found Lucas Höler in the middle, but his header was easily saved by Gregor Kobel (4’). At the other end, Matthias Ginter did well to clear a Julian Brandt cross destined for Sébastien Haller (5’).

Wout, we actually wanted to meet in front of the AVIA petrol station in Hoffenheim for the photo shoot, because your family operates more than 130 petrol stations in the Netherlands. But you decided on a different location. Why?