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FOOTBALL

Lionel Messi retires from international football after 21 years with Argentina

The 39-year-old Argentina captain ends his international career as a World Cup winner and the country’s all-time leading scorer, with 207 appearances and 125 goals.
Frontline News Desk
TRIBUTE

Sumit Sarkar (1939–2026): Historian of India’s many histories

He transformed the study of modern India by bringing class, caste, gender and popular politics into the historical narrative while teaching generations to question neat conclusions and remain open to complexity.
Charu Gupta
Travel

Byron and Shelley’s Pisa, still slightly tilted

A wander through Tuscany’s smaller cities traces the last, sunlit years of two Romantic poets who lived, loved, and drowned chasing freedom, and finds them oddly present in an age of influencers and climate denial.
Shreya Sen-Handley
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

A game of extraction

FIFA’s plan to “capitalise” future revenues may have failed for now, but football federations are only pawns in the larger game of finance subordinating the sport to extract every dollar possible.
C.P. Chandrasekhar

More stories from Other

T.R. Mahalingam at a flute concert in Bangalore in February 1981. A towering figure in Carnatic music, his extraordinary artistry endured despite failing health and personal struggles.

Mali, the man

Fastidious but erratic. Genial but melancholic. T. R. Mahalingam was a man of many facets. S. Shiva Kumar, who from his childhood knew Mali, narrates his impressions.
S. Shiva Kumar
Japanese mystery author Keigo Higashino passed away, aged 68, on July 23, 2026.

Keigo Higashino (1958-2026): The master of doubt

The bestselling Japanese mystery writer will be remembered for using the genre as a form of social inquiry, for murders on riverbanks, and for the lip-smacking food he served in his fiction.
Jaideep Unudurti
Spain players celebrate after defeating Argentina in the World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on July 19, 2026.

Spain’s second star, and a World Cup that challenged football’s neutrality

The expanded FIFA World Cup proved that bigger can make football richer, more global and more compelling, while also making it more political, more commercial and harder to govern.
Frontline News Desk
Playback singer S. Janaki in Chennai in 2007. She made her debut in the late 1950s and made waves in the Tamil industry with all-time classics in the 1960s .

S. Janaki (1938-2026): Of sweetest songs and saddest thought

The “Nightingale of South India”, who sang across languages and generations for six decades, leaves behind a body of work that continues to find new audiences.
Ramesh Chakrapani
Teejan Bai performs at IIT Delhi in 2017.

Dushasana, Draupadi, and Teejan Bai

Teejan Bai (1956–2026) fought her battles on and off stage—through the tales of the warring Pandavas and the choices of her own life as a female performer in the public gaze.
Ranjana Dave
Vijaya Mehta transformed Marathi theatre with fearless innovation.

Vijaya Mehta (1934-2026): A meticulous mentor

Theatre director and actor Vijaya Mehta brought to theatre a fresh approach, a fresh technique, and a fresh concept of the role it plays in life and art.
Pratima Kulkarni
A football fan balances a ball on his head beside murals of Indian football players during celebrations marking Argentine football star Lionel Messi’s 39th birthday, amid the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2026, in Kolkata, on June 24, 2026.

The football World Cup is not waiting for India

The country needs grassroots football, coaching, academies, and competent administration if it hopes to reach the FIFA World Cup. A new letterhead for AIFF can wait.
Aditya Sinha
The pioneer of microhistory showed that the archive exceeds what it was designed to contain.

Carlo Ginzburg (1939-2026): The historian of hidden lives

Through forgotten archives and overlooked clues, the pioneer of microhistory recovered the thoughts and experiences of ordinary people whom history had pushed to the margins, and historians read beyond official narratives.
Himadri Sekhar Mistri
Performers on the pitch during the opening ceremony before the start of the FIFA World Cup Group A match between Mexico and South Africa in Mexico City on June 11, 2026.

A World Cup with conditions attached

The biggest World Cup in history kicked off in Mexico City even as travel bans and visa refusals kept fans, officials and a referee from several qualifying nations away from the tournament they had earned a place in.
Frontline News Desk
Singers Andrea Bocelli and EJAE perform during the opening ceremony before the FIFA World Cup Group A match between Mexico and South Africa, in Mexico City, on June 11, 2026.

FIFA World Cup: The stories behind the spectacle

A comprehensive package on football’s bigger story, on and off the field.
TEAM FRONTLINE
Argentine football legend Diego Maradona controls a ball during a photocall for Serbian director Emir Kusturica’s documentary Maradona by Kusturica at the 61st Cannes Film Festival, in France, on May 20, 2008.

God, gunpowder, and the gospel of Maradona

As another FIFA World Cup kicks off, revisiting Emir Kusturica’s documentary reveals how Maradona became a football genius, political rebel, and secular saint still revered far beyond the pitch.
Vidyarthy Chatterjee
U.S. President Donald Trump holds the FIFA World Cup trophy during an announcement about the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 22, 2025.

FIFA’s own goal in America

The World Cup is becoming a stage for Trump’s politics, and FIFA is doing little to stop it.
Aditya Sinha
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