Coming back to you here with some very interesting poll results.

Yesterday, I asked who you’d like to see win this year’s FIFA World Cup when given the option of the four remaining teams: Spain, France, England, and Argentina.

The results: 46% of you want to see England win their second World Cup title, 60 years on from their first.

France had the next most votes with 21%, followed by Argentina with 18% and Spain with 15%.

It’s coming home, I guess?

$US9.6 billion ($AU13.8 billion)
That is the price agreed for the Seattle Seahawks over the weekend, setting a record for an NFL franchise sale. The figure paid for the defending Super Bowl champions is 59% higher than the previous record of $US6 billion ($AU8.6 billion), paid for the Washington Commanders in 2023. A group, led by tech billionaire Vinod Khosla, is buying the team from the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who bought the Seahawks for $US194 million in 1997.

"Julius Caesar, one of the great conquerors in history, said there are no big achievements without suffering, and I agree with that fully…If you want to achieve big things in life, you need to leave something along the way and to suffer a great deal. And we are here to suffer."
Spain’s football coach Luis de la Fuente speaking ahead of his side’s semi-final against France tomorrow morning. Spain head into the match as slight underdogs, despite conceding just one goal all tournament and defeating France in the last two meetings between the sides. The game kicks off at 5am on Wednesday (AEST). You can watch it on SBS and SBS on Demand.

The record for the most goals scored by a water polo player at a single Olympic Games has stood for 42 years. Spain's Manuel Estiarte netted 34 goals across the 1984 Los Angeles Games, a men's benchmark not threatened since. The women's record is 28, which was set by the Netherlands' Simone van de Kraats at Tokyo 2020.

🏉 Geelong Cats star Jeremy Cameron will miss four to six weeks of the AFL season after having surgery on his left shoulder. The league’s two-time leading goalkicker picked up the injury in a heavy collision with GWS Giants midfielder Clayton Oliver during Saturday's 13-point loss. The 33-year-old could return in time for the finals, giving ninth-placed Geelong hope of a late push for a top six spot.

🏉 In the NRL, the Melbourne Storm's finals hopes have taken a hit, with five-eighth and Queensland captain Cameron Munster booked in for knee surgery to repair a cartilage injury. He is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks. Melbourne sits 10th on the NRL ladder, four points outside the top eight with six rounds left to play. Utility Tyran Wishart is expected to step in when the Storm travel to face the third-placed Sydney Roosters on Friday night.

🥇 Russian athletes will return to modern pentathlon next month after the sport’s governing body lifted all restrictions, following the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) move to provisionally reinstate the Russian  Olympic Committee. Modern pentathlon tests athletes across five events: Fencing, swimming, an obstacle course that will debut at the 2028 Olympic Games, and a combined event featuring running and laser pistol shooting. The sport’s governing body voted to allow Russian teams to compete again, with President Rob Stull saying the IOC has entered “a new era where athletes will no longer be punished for the actions of their governments”. It follows a similar decision by table tennis officials on Monday.

Reporting by George Finlayson and Pavitra Ravi.

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There are no World Cup games on today, but the off-field news continues.

Here’s what to know.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said officials will examine a move to 64 teams once this year’s World Cup ends. He has celebrated the current 48-team format introduced this year.

Infantino told Swiss television outlet Blue Sport: “I think it is important that when you want to organise a World Cup, you do it for the whole world… Not just Europe and South America”.

Any decision will be made after the tournament.

A former Spanish prime minister is facing criticism after he claimed France “does not have any French players”. Mariano Rajoy made the comment ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final between the two nations.

French Football Federation President Philippe Diallo said the remarks carried “intolerable whiffs of racism”.

It comes after a Paraguayan senator posted racist remarks about France captain Kylian Mbappé last week. Celeste Amarilla called Mbappé a “colonized Cameroonian, pretending hard to be French”. (Mbappé was born and raised in Paris. His father is from Cameroon and his mother is of Algerian descent.)

Meanwhile, South Africa midfielder Jayden Adams has died at 25. The country’s Sport Minister Gayton McKenzie said the cause of his death had not yet been confirmed and criticised misinformation circulating online.

Dutch referee Rob Dieperink has also died, with the Dutch football association saying it is “shocked and deeply saddened”. His death comes two months after officials removed the 38-year-old from the World Cup panel amid a police investigation into an alleged sexual assault involving a minor. However, the case was later dropped by police.

Reporting by Pavitra Ravi.

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Australian Alex de Minaur is now the world’s fifth-ranked professional tennis player. It’s a career best for the 27-year-old and the first time since Lleyton Hewitt in 2009 that an Australian man has been ranked in the top five.  

Here is what to know. 

De Minaur’s change in rankings from sixth to fifth was confirmed on Monday following the conclusion of Wimbledon, which saw him beaten in the Round of 16 by ninth-seeded Italian Flavio Cobolli. Despite a disappointing Wimbledon campaign which he described as “gut-wrenching”, De Minaur moved into fifth ahead of American Ben Shelton, who was eliminated in the opening round.

De Minaur is the seventh Australian man to have held a top five ranking after Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Pat Cash, Pat Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt. Along with his ranking boost, De Minaur has also become a husband after getting married to his fiancée and Great Britain’s second-ranked women’s player, Katie Boulter, on Sunday. 

The ATP updates its singles rankings each Monday, with points accumulated over the previous 52 weeks. Every player's total is built from 19 tournaments: The four Grand Slams, eight mandatory Masters 1000 events, and their best seven results from other tour stops. 

Grand Slam winners earn 2,000 points while Masters 1000 champions earn 1,000. Points roll off exactly a year after they are won, forcing players to defend their haul at the same event the following year or lose ground. The system is built to reward season-long consistency, not one-off deep runs at the majors.

Wimbledon runner-up Alexander Zverev of Germany moved from third to second, overtaking Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, who has been sidelined with a wrist injury since April. British wildcard Arthur Fery rose 78 places to No. 36 following a fairytale semi-final run at Wimbledon.

On the women's side, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka held her position at world No. 1 for a 91st consecutive week despite a fourth-round exit. Czech pair Karolína Muchová and Linda Nosková hit career-highs of No. 6 and No. 7, respectively, with 21-year-old Wimbledon champion Nosková entering the top 10 for the first time.

The final Grand Slam of the year is the U.S. Open, starting in New York on Monday 31 August. Before that, players will fine-tune their hard-court games at Masters events in Montreal, Toronto and Cincinnati.