Manchester City are through to the knockout stages of the Champions League, after they came from behind to beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 at the Etihad last night. Mauricio Pochettino - heavily linked with the vacant manager's role across Manchester at Old Trafford - saw his side take the lead in the 50th minute through Kylian Mbappe. However in the battle of the Gulf state-funded clubs the UAE trumped Qatar, with goals from Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus giving Pep Guardiola's side all three points and top spot in Group A. With Red Bull Leipzig thrashing Club Brugge 5-0, PSG's passage into the last-16 is also assured. Meanwhile Liverpool kept up their perfect record in the group stages as they beat FC Porto 2-0 at Anfield, with Thiago and Mohamed Salah on the scoresheet. Tonight there's Europa League action, with Celtic facing a crunch trip away to Bayer Leverkusen (kick-off 5.45pm). West Ham can confirm their place in the knockout stages as they travel to Rapid Vienna (5.45pm), while Leicester host Legia Warsaw (8pm). In the Europa Conference League Spurs travel to Slovenia to take on NS Mura (5.45pm).
Rugby players will be allowed to swap the national side they represent as of January 2022 after World Rugby approved a change to Test match eligibility rules yesterday. A player will be able to switch to a nation they were born in, or their parents or grandparents were born in, providing they hadn't played international rugby for three years or more. The move will favour Pacific Island nations, mainly Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, with players such as Charles Piutau - a former All Blacks player with Tongan heritage - now potentially able to feature at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Other players who could benefit from the rule change are Steven Luatua, Julian Savea, Liam Sopoaga and the disgraced Israel Folau. Gerry Thornley writes: "There will be some, maybe plenty, who will claim this will permit wide-scale cases of players switching allegiances and devalue international rugby, and it remains to be seen if there may yet be unintended consequences. However, on the whole, the pluses far outweigh the negatives, not least in boosting the Pacific Islands countries who have been disadvantaged by socio-economic factors in losing players forever more to Tier 1 nations."
Ireland's bid to secure a place at the 2023 World Cup continues this evening, as they take on Slovakia in a crunch qualifier in Tallaght (kick-off 7pm, RTÉ 2). Vera Pauw's side are still riding the crest of a wave following last month's famous win away to Finland - but another three points are required tonight to keep their qualification hopes on track. A record crowd of almost 6,500 is expected to pack out Tallaght Stadium for the fixture, and the Republic are set to have the services of talisman Katie McCabe, who sustained a foot injury in Arsenal's recent 2-0 win over Manchester United. Ahead of tonight's crunch fixture, Pauw said: "The girls are also realistic, knowing we have to have the same level we showed against Finland to have any chance to win. If we cannot put that on the pitch then we have an issue. We are not yet that good that we can do it automatically."
Elsewhere in her column this morning Sonia O'Sullivan has reflected on last weekend's cross-country National Inter-Club Championships in Santry, which also acted as a trial for the upcoming European Cross-Country Championships on December 12th. The European Championships will be held in Abbotstown, Dublin, and O'Sullivan is quietly confident about how the home nation will fare. She writes: "To me this looks like one of the overall strongest representations that we can have across all the races. If you build it, they will come may be the mantra for the national purpose-built cross-country course at Sports Campus Ireland."
And in his column this morning Ciaran Murphy has paid tribute to outgoing Mayo stalwart Colm Boyle, who announced his intercounty retirement earlier in the week. Boyle was born on the Mayo side of the border with Galway - which as Murphy writes, is a curious corner of the GAA world. "So there are isolated tales of All-Ireland-winning underage Mayo footballers (not Colm Boyle, I hasten to add) who were actually born and lived in the county of Galway. That may not make sense geographically, but it is at least intellectually consistent."
