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Springboks set to ring the changes for last All Blacks Test in the USA
The Springboks are set to ring the changes for the final Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Test against the All Blacks in Baltimore, USA, regardless of the result of the third Test at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Saturday. cricket-ipl.in
Over the first two Tests the Boks have used 30 players, with seven changes made to the match 23s that played in their loss at Ellis Park and win at the Cape Town Stadium last weekend.
But only one injury enforced change has been made to the match 23 for this coming weekend’s match, with Damian Willemse ruled out, Cheslin Kolbe switched to fullback, and Kurt-Lee Arendse, who played in the first Test, back on the wing.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus explained that they had already used a fair number of players and expected to use more by the end the series.
“In the first two games we’ve used 30 players, so it’s already a lot of guys that have chopped and changed. And I guess by the time we get to the last game, we would have used 36, and that’s almost our whole squad,” said Erasmus.
Unused players
Meanwhile, the Boks won’t be taking their full squad to Baltimore in the USA for the fourth Test and plan to use a further six men there who haven’t had any game time yet in this series.
Handré Pollard, who was named in the team for the second Test before picking up a calf injury that ruled him out last weekend and for this Saturday’s game, will get a go in Baltimore, as will Canan Moodie, who has been battling a hamstring strain, while Willemse and Grant Williams are expected to recover from injuries to also play the fourth Test.
“Damian suffered a grade one hamstring (strain) and we believe he will be ready and on the plane to Baltimore on Sunday. Handré, Grant and Canan will also be on the plane,” said Erasmus.
Erasmus further said that the Boks are looking forward to playing the final Test in the USA, which will be a new experience for many of the players in the group.
“Playing the last match in Baltimore, one can see it as a negative. But I hear it is sold out already. It is a new experience for us. I know they (the All Blacks) have played there a few times, not at that specific stadium, but in the US against Ireland,” said Erasmus.
“So we are looking forward to the fourth Test as well.”
LEC vs. LCS: Who leads League of Legends’ oldest regional rivalry?
Europe vs. North America has been one of the game’s defining regional rivalries since the inaugural League of Legends World Championship in 2011. It has survived years of trash talk, Rift Rivals, international upsets, and one-sided stomps.
For much of the last 15 years, though, Europe had the stronger argument. The region produced deeper international runs, won major trophies, and generally looked like the clear third-best region behind Korea and China. However, that is becoming much harder to say now.
North America is leading the recent head-to-head, while Europe continues to perform significantly better against the regions actually competing for international titles. So who really has the upper hand in League’s oldest regional rivalry today?
Methodology: This analysis counts individual games played at Worlds, MSI, and First Stand through MSI 2026, including play-on matches. Teams are classified by the league or conference through which they qualified, with LTA North teams grouped with North America and LYON counted as an LCS representative in 2026. Rift Rivals and other competitions outside Riot’s three global tournaments are excluded. Global Power Rankings (GPR) scores are accurate as of Sep. 1, 2026.
Recent head-to-heads favor North America
Since First Stand 2025, LCS and LTA North teams have a 12–3 record against LEC teams at Riot’s international events.
| Tournament | Match | Result |
|---|---|---|
| First Stand 2025 | Team Liquid vs. Karmine Corp | TL won 2–1 |
| MSI 2025 | FlyQuest vs. G2 Esports | FLY won 3–0 |
| Worlds 2025 | FlyQuest vs. G2 Esports | G2 won 2–1 |
| MSI 2026 | Team Liquid vs. Karmine Corp | TL won 3–0 |
| MSI 2026 | LYON vs. G2 Esports | LYON won 3–0 |
That’s four series wins for North America and one for Europe. The sample remains relatively small, but the direction of travel is difficult to ignore.
MSI 2026 was especially ugly for the LEC. Team Liquid swept Karmine Corp before LYON did the same to G2 Esports, leaving Europe with a 0–6 record against the LCS in a single tournament.
If your definition of third-best is simply, ‘When LEC and LCS play each other, who wins?’, the answer right now is North America.
But beating Europe isn’t the same as beating Korea and China
This is where the argument completely flips.
Across First Stand, MSI, and Worlds in 2025, as well as First Stand and MSI in 2026, the LEC, LCS, and LCP produced the following game records against LCK and LPL teams:
| Region | Record vs. LCK/LPL | Win rate | Bo3/Bo5 series wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEC | 21–37 | 36.2% | 5 |
| LCP | 10–28 | 26.3% | 2 |
| LCS/LTA North | 8–33 | 19.5% | 0 |
Those numbers come from every matchup at the last five international tournaments. The final column is particularly brutal for North America.
Since the beginning of 2025, no LCS or LTA North team has won a single best-of-three or best-of-five series against an LCK or LPL team at an international event.
Now, that’s not to say there haven’t been any good performances — there definitely have.
For example, FlyQuest took Bilibili Gaming to five games at MSI 2025, while 100 Thieves even upset the Chinese titan in a best-of-one at Worlds. However, there have been no series wins, while the LEC has five and the LCP has two.
G2 carries Europe’s record against the East
Europe’s advantage against Korea and China comes with one major caveat: most of it belongs to G2 Esports.
MSI 2026 might be the perfect example of how strange the wider regional debate has become. G2’s main-stage results were:
| Opponent | Result |
|---|---|
| Top Esports | G2 won 3–2 |
| Hanwha Life Esports | HLE won 3–0 |
| T1 | G2 won 3–1 |
| LYON | LYON won 3–0 |
This means G2 went 6–6 against Korea and China before being swept by LYON. By contrast, the LCS champions’ results against Eastern teams were:
| Opponent | Result |
|---|---|
| Bilibili Gaming | BLG won 3–0 |
| Hanwha Life Esports | HLE won 3–2 |
Team Liquid also lost 0–3 to T1 twice during the play-in stage. Put everything together, and MSI 2026 looked like this:
| Region | Against the other Western region | Against LCK/LPL |
|---|---|---|
| LEC | 0–6 vs. LCS | 6–9 |
| LCS | 6–0 vs. LEC | 2–12 |
North America destroyed Europe in the head-to-head, while the LEC was vastly more competitive against the tournament’s Korean and Chinese teams.
However, G2 accounted for 16 of the LEC’s 21 game wins against LCK and LPL opposition across the five tournaments analyzed. It also produced four of Europe’s five series victories. Without G2, the rest of the LEC went 5–15 against Korea and China and won only a single series.
This does not necessarily erase Europe’s advantage. Still, it suggests the region has only one team capable of consistently challenging the East rather than significantly greater depth across the entire league.
Riot’s rankings still place Europe third
Riot’s GPR offers another way to compare the regions. As of Sep. 1, the regional scores are:
| Region | Regional strength |
|---|---|
| LCK | 1389 |
| LPL | 1362 |
| LEC | 1265 |
| LCS | 1242 |
| LCP | 1107 |
| CBLOL | 835 |
The GPR isn’t a traditional opinion-based power ranking. Riot’s Elo-based system combines individual team Elo and regional Elo using an 80/20 weighting.
The current ranking has LYON fifth in the world with a Power Score of 1458, just ahead of G2 in sixth at 1444. Karmine Corp sits eighth at 1409, Team Liquid is 13th at 1346, and FlyQuest is 15th at 1340.
Take the top three teams from each region, and it gets almost comical:
- LYON, TL, and FlyQuest combine for 4144 points.
- G2, Karmine Corp, and Movistar KOI combine for 4143 points.
I wouldn’t treat a one-point difference as definitive statistical evidence, especially since every team’s Power Score already includes a regional component. It does, however, show just how closely matched the top of the two leagues currently is.
Europe has history, but North America is catching up
If we zoom out from the last two seasons, Europe’s historical advantage becomes much easier to see. The two regions have been competing since the first World Championship in 2011, but their international résumés are very different.
Officially, there is no debate over Fnatic’s 2011 title. Riot recognizes the team as the Season 1 World Champions, and the players even have their own World Championship skins. However, plenty of fans still place an asterisk next to that victory for an understandable reason.
Season 1 Worlds looked nothing like today’s tournament. Korea and China were not represented, and the competition was held as part of DreamHack rather than as the enormous standalone event that Worlds later became.
Europe’s trophies and deepest Worlds runs
Regardless of how much weight fans give that tournament, Europe has won major international trophies. Fnatic won Season 1 Worlds, while G2 won MSI 2019 after sweeping Team Liquid 3–0 in the final.
Europe has also produced far more deep runs at Worlds. Moscow Five and CLG Europe reached the semifinals in 2012, with Fnatic following in 2013. Fnatic and Origen both reached the final four in 2015 before H2K did the same in 2016.
The region’s strongest period in the modern era occurred between 2018 and 2020. Fnatic reached the Worlds final in 2018, G2 reached the final in 2019 after winning MSI earlier that year, and G2 reached another Worlds semifinal in 2020.
North America’s international highlights are fewer, but still significant
CLG reached the MSI 2016 final, Cloud9 became the first North American team since Season 1 to reach a Worlds semifinal in 2018, and Team Liquid produced one of the biggest upsets in League history when they beat reigning World Champions Invictus Gaming at MSI 2019.
Unfortunately for North America, that run ended with G2 sweeping Team Liquid in the final.
Historically, Europe clearly has the stronger trophy cabinet and a much longer record of deep international runs. The direct EU vs. NA record, however, is much closer.
If we count individual games at Riot’s three international competitions — Worlds, MSI, and First Stand — from Season 1 through MSI 2026, Europe leads all-time head-to-head: EU 66–59 NA.
North America has controlled the rivalry since 2021
That is only a seven-game difference across 125 games, and most of Europe’s advantage was established years ago.
It’s worth noting that Rift Rivals is not included in that total. Although it was an official Riot competition built specifically around regional rivalries, it was not a global tournament like Worlds, MSI, or First Stand.
Through the end of 2020, Europe led the matchup 45–30. Since 2021, North America has led 29–21. Since the beginning of 2023, that advantage has grown to 20–9, including North America’s current 12–3 run against Europe since First Stand 2025.
That tells the story of the rivalry better than almost anything else.
So, who leads the LEC vs. LCS rivalry?
Historically, Europe had both arguments: it performed better against the rest of the world and usually had the upper hand against North America. Today, only the first part is still clearly true.
If this is strictly about the LEC vs. LCS rivalry, North America has the upper hand. It has won four of the last five international series between the regions and leads the matchup 20–9 since 2023.
But if the question is which region remains stronger internationally, Europe still has the better case. It owns the superior historical résumé and continues to produce much better results against Korea and China, although most of that recent resistance has come from G2.
Europe remains the more accomplished region, but North America is currently winning the rivalry itself. For the first time in years, those are no longer the same argument.
The post LEC vs. LCS: Who leads League of Legends’ oldest regional rivalry? appeared first on Esports Insider.
Ouaddou Challenges Padime & Masilela to Build on Promising Starts
Orlando Pirates head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou has challenged emerging youngsters to build on their promising starts after Mpho Padime and Simphiwe Masilela impressed when given their opportunity.
The Buccaneers will look to secure their third consecutive victory in the Betway Premiership when they take on Kruger United at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.
Pirates head into this fixture sitting in top spot in the league, level on 10 points with second placed Mamelodi Sundowns.
Abdeslam Ouaddou has challenged Orlando Pirates’ emerging youngsters to build on their promising starts after Mpho Padime and Masilela impressed when given their opportunity.
Ouaddou believes the club will continue to create pathways for young talent, but stressed that the players must remain humble, dedicated and professional if they are to establish themselves at the highest level.
“Not only him (Mpho Padime}, I think we can include Masilela in the talk. Well, done to both of them. I think Pirates is a club that is giving chances to the young. It’s not the first time, and we continue the process. They did very well, we saw they have great potential,” said Ouaddou.
“Now, they must keep on working, they must keep on being humble, listening to be coachable. It’s only the first game. A career is a minimum of 10 years. When I have an opportunity to give them game time, definitely I will give them.
“But they must still work and be very professional because in football you can go high quickly, but you can fall quickly as well.
“Well done, keep working. Be careful about your life. You have to be professional. Think football, you train, you go home, you rest. You eat good, you drink water and not something else. Don’t smoke, don’t take things that can destroy your body,” he concluded.
The post Ouaddou Challenges Padime & Masilela to Build on Promising Starts appeared first on SportsClub.
Football : fin du bras de fer entre l'UEFA et la Fifa ?
L’UEFA a finalement annoncé qu'elle levait, pour un an, sa menace de boycott des compétitions organisées par la Fifa. Cette menace avait été décidée après la révélation du projet de Gianni Infantino d’ouvrir la Coupe du monde à des investisseurs privés. Mais qu’a obtenu l’UEFA en échange de cette suspension ? Malgré le retrait du boycott, l'instance européenne maintient la pression sur le patron de la Fifa. Comment compte-t-elle faire barrage à la réélection de Gianni Infantino à la tête du football mondial ?