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How has the Europeanisation of football at the level of governance (due to for example the effects of the Bosman ruling and the formation of the UEFA Champions League) – influenced the identities of football fans? This paper explores how such structural Europeanisation in football is influencing identifications among fans. Based on an analysis of articulations in selected online message boards, we distil the positioning of fans towards 'Europe' in football, and the factors which shape it. We control for three main avenues of impact: the club level, the league level, and the societal context. Our inquiry is based on a set of paired comparisons of fan scenes for football clubs in four different European countries. Results show that the factor carrying the most explanatory power is the club's participation in European-level competition. Although this broadly confirms a 'contact hypothesis' – according to which the more fans are exposed to cross-border contacts, the less relevance they attribute to aspects of national belonging – significant variations of how frequent exposure to European-level competition translates into more Europeanised perceptions do exist. For European identity studies, the work corroborates that a lifeworld arena such as football can foster Europeanised identifications, albeit not in a uniform manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to compare match performance in the group and knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League (UCL) for players in different playing positions. The information on physical and technical performances was collected during all UCL matches (n=125) in the 2022/23 season. Players' observations (n=1387) were classified according to their playing positions as central defender (CD; n=471), fullback (FB; n=283), central midfielder (CM; n=376), winger (WM; n=137) and forward (FW; n=104). No differences in technical performance between the group and knockout stage were found for CDs, FBs, CMs, and WMs, while only FWs achieved significantly less shots on target (Cohen's d (d=0.46), total passes (d=0.54), successful passes (d=0.49), and more duels (d=0.39) in the knockout compared to the group stage. The CDs, CMs, and WMs covered greater distance at moderate (d=0.46-0.63) and high (d=0.29-0.38) speeds in the knockout compared to the group stage, while no differences in physical performance between the group and knockout stage were found for FBs and FWs. This study demonstrated that (i) the technical performance of UCL players was in general stable irrespective of the competition stage, (ii) matches played in the knockout stage were characterized by greater match intensity compared to the matches played in the group stage of UCL for CDs, CMs, and WMs. These findings may help football coaches in the decision-making process when selecting the players for specific matches and designing training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]