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Liverpool are staring down a genuine defensive crisis with less than a month before the Premier League season kicks off. Joe Gomez and new signing Jeremy Jacquet are both sidelined with minor injuries, leaving the club with zero available senior centre-backs and now seriously weighing whether to trigger the buyback clause on Jarell Quansah, just one year after selling him to Bayer Leverkusen. That is not the position you want to be in heading into August.
Shifting to France, and it is official — Zinédine Zidane is coming home. Twenty-one years after his last involvement with Les Bleus as a player, Zidane has been formally appointed head coach of the French national team. It is one of the most anticipated appointments in European football history, and the pressure on Zizou to deliver will be immense from day one.
And in cricket, India have announced their fifteen-man Test squad for the two-match series in Sri Lanka, with Shubman Gill captaining the side. Jasprit Bumrah returns to the fold, and thirty-three-year-old Madhya Pradesh spinner Saransh Jain earns a remarkable maiden call-up after more than a decade grinding through domestic cricket. Better late than never.
That's your play-by-play. Sports Desk, back to the booth.
